guilty of being ...

Delete this feed

2006-05-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

Note from Patricia Burroughs:

The time has come for you to delete this feed unless you want to get really annoyed.

The only reason I moved to http://planetpooks.wordpress.com is because they have Categories and blogger doesn't. That's it. The only reason. (As always, you can find the official pooks info at my official site, http://patriciaburroughs.com.)

But is seemed important to me because my stats show that there are certain things I blog about that get higher hits than others, and where the hits are coming from changes with subject matter, and so I think it's important as a good hostess to make it easy for my guests to find other posts on the subject that brought them to the site, rather than having to scroll through tons of stuff they don't care about.

I'm also thinking about joining Greenpeace or The Sierra Club. Believe me, I am a good American and I voted for Ronald Reagan AND Papa Bush (the first time he ran, before "Read my lips," and "Oh by the way, pay more taxes...") and I understand that it is only the good and loyal red-blooded American thing to do to have categories, so that when I turn into a left-wing commie-loving tree-hugger, it will be easier for the FBI and Homeland Security to keep an eye on me in case I and my other tree-hugging friends hatch an Al Quaeda cell along with whatever endangered owls we're protecting this week. I know my duty.

But there are things that I can do on blogger than I can't do on wordpress, yet if I import from here to there, the format goes with. So I'm going to occasionally do a post here, and once I get it formatted properly, import it over there and delete it here.

And if you're getting notifies every time I do that, you'll get very annoyed, I am sure.

So delete this feed and go to Planet Pooks.

The world will be a better place and Big Brother will appreciate it.

Thanks!

Changing Lodgings...

2006-04-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

Do you remember Fagin calling out, "We're changin' lodgin's!"in Oliver?

I digress.

As of April 2005, everything here is available on my new site, along with new content.

See you there, I hope!

Planet Pooks

Political

2006-04-07T10:32:00.000-05:00

yet another one

I think it's time to bookmark the other site, huh?

Actually about writing!

2006-04-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

I'm it. Again.

That link takes you to the specific post, but if you click the title of the blog you'll go to the main page where you'll find that I've copied all entries from here to there. See ya!

43 Folders Explained

2006-04-06T23:04:00.001-05:00

click this

Decisions, Decisions

2006-04-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

So I've been a little frustrated that I can't use "categories" here on blogger, or if I can, I don't know how. It would evidently be a hack, not something that was built into the system.

I'd like to be able to have a link in the sidebar for GTD and STC and Writing and Cowboys and whatever else I want, without cluttering up the sidebar with all the individual links. As was pointed out to me, you can do this on WordPress.

So I ventured over there last night.

I'm trying to decide -- to move, or not to move.

To change the title of my blog, or not to change the title of my blog.

To give up my pretty green borders, or not to give up my pretty green borders.

And since I think 2.5 of you actually come back to my blog as repeat readers, would you follow me over there? Or would you click this link here, find nothing new, and go on to greener blogs?

Does this mess up things like Technorati and Bloglines?

Here is the new site, though the template may change:

me, over there

Speak up. I need opinions!

Three from GTD

2006-04-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

I was going to write about how Getting Things Done and Save the Cat have worked together in my brain for the past few weeks. But then I realized I needed to explain a little about about GTD.

The problem is, I never have spoken a lot about the specifics of GTD or STC because I figured it might not be cool to talk about specifics, when I'm sure both Blake Snyder and David Allen would prefer you to buy their books and not pick up their systems off a blog.

Then I realized, the few tidbits I spill here would only convince you that you do need to buy their books.

So here I am, about to give you three basic ideas from GTD, for starters.

First, what is GTD all about? It's about reducing stress, possibly even eliminating most of your stress. How? Well, how much of the stress that is tightening the cords in your neck right now from things hanging over your head that you ought to do, or need to do, or just think you probably should do, but can't do anything about right this second, anyway?

Exactly.

David Allen proposes that your brain keeps working and worrying ideas repetitively -- when you can't do a damn thing about the idea at that moment -- unless you have a trusted system where you can store the idea until it's time to think about it. Maybe you're simply reminding yourself, "Oh wait -- my mom's birthday is tomorrow, I have to remember to send flowers and call her," when you're in a place where you can do neither, so you keep reminding yourself, hoping you'll actually remember to do it when you get back to a phone (send flowers) and tomorrow (call her). Or maybe it's a huge work project. Something tiny or something huge, your brain can't file it away until the right time, so instead it keeps dumping it all in your lap at the same time.

Stress.

As soon as "I ought to" or "I need to" or "I want to" enters your head, it becomes an incomplete task and your brain starts dealing with it, unless you relieve your brain of its responsibility.

So, first, learn to write everything down.

This isn't exactly a new idea. People have been doing it for centuries. And it's what the idea of planners (my fave, the Franklin Planner, especially) were built on. If you trained yourself to turn the page of your planner every single day you would see the reminder to ORDER FLOWERS the day before your mom's birthday, and then you could forget about it again until the next day, when you turned the page and saw CALL MOM - HAPPY BIRTHDAY waiting for you. And once you realized that this was safe, you'd learn to open your planner the day you got it, go through and put in those birthday reminders, and forget about birthdays until the time came that you needed to do something about them. You'd learn to write down your ideas as soon as they popped in your head, and to cross-reference back to them or forward to when you'd need them again. You'd get all this "stuff" out of your head and feel a whole lot better because you weren't worried about losing details and forgetting important things.

David Allen has taken this farther. He's given a few basic principles that handle all your "stuff." Not just appointments and ideas and to-do lists, but even how you handle all the "stuff" that passes through your hands. (And he leaves the details up to you -- whether you want to use a PDA, computer, paper, or any combination. It's about what makes you most comfortable and productive.)

Here's an example. The stuff on your desk and in your office. The first thing he has you do is gather everything that doesn't belong where it is, the way it is, permanently into one (probably huge) "in basket" (which in my case was a humongous pile of stuff in the middle of the living room floor - gack!), leaving your office/desk/surfaces all cleared. (Hey, maybe you won't even have to dust, because there hasn't been a bare surface for dust to gather on ... I mean, it could happen. Not that I'm saying it happened to me or anything.)

Then when you've cleared all that stuff out (leaving behind supplies, reference materials, equipment/furniture, and decorations that you still like) you process through it piece by piece until the mountain -- I mean pile -- I mean in basket is gone.

And when you finish, everything is where it is supposed to be, the way it's supposed to be. Or it's gone. And all those projects waiting to be done? Are in "mute" mode, not "drive you crazy running a hamster wheel in your brain" mode.

Wow. What a concept.

Now he gives you all sorts of mental tools to accomplish this, and urges you to get the physical tools you need, too. So if you're really ready to tackle this, I suggest you buy his book.

But here are three mental tools that rocked my world.

ONE: Pick up the thing on top. Process it. (Again, read his book.) Then move to the next. Do NOT pick up the easy thing underneath it. Because you will end up having handled all the easy things, and still have a pile of things that are harder to process. Take them in order, and don't let yourself put stuff off, because putting it off only makes it get harder to think about, because now you know it's there waiting for you and that will just make those cords in your neck knot up again, dummy. Deal off the top, first things first, and then move on.

This counts whether you're excavating a mountain or just emptying your real in basket, or even reading email. Just deal with it and move on, don't let it pile up while you handle easy stuff and know that the tough stuff is still swimming around the periphery of your mind, with an occasional flash of dorsal fin to fill you with dread....

TWO: Anything that can be done in two minutes or less?

DO IT NOW.

So here I picked up an ice scraper off the mountain and thought, "This goes in the car," and started to put it aside, you know, until I had more things to take to the car. Because that's what we've been told is productive, right? Put everything that's going to the car in one stack and take it all at once.

But that's stupid. All you'd be doing is rearranging the mess. So I just dashed out to the car and put it up. Came back in, twenty minutes later I dashed out to the car again to take something else. But in that twenty minutes I was visibly seeing the mountain shrink -- well I could tell it was smaller whether anybody else could or not.

The thing is, putting it aside to handle later is what caused this mess to accumulate to begin with. So if it's two minutes or less, do it now. (And let me tell you, that counts for just about anything. It's amazing how much difference it makes to just adapt that little rule. For example, the funeral flowers I was supposed to order last week that wouldn't have taken two minutes if I'd ever done it, but I kept thinking I'd do "later...” Sigh.)

THREE: This one is so powerful, I tremble to think of it. And so easy. (That's the thing about David Allen -- his entire system is based on the idea that if it's not easy, you won't do it. Nothing complex here. It's all easy.)

You know why you have a pile of stuff on your desk, right? Because you aren't one of those "born organized" people who automatically know what to do with it. There's some stuff that's so important, you knew immediately what to do, where to put it, how to process it. There's other stuff that went straight into the trashcan.

Now you've got the stuff that lies somewhere in between, because you weren't sure what to do with it, maybe you didn't want to think about it "right now," and now it covers your world.

David Allen gives you a filing system so simple it's ingenious, and suddenly you have a place to put all those little bits of info that you want to hold onto but aren't sure what to do with them -- just file everything, even if it's only one sheet of paper. It's part of your "trusted system" that relieves your stress because now, not only do you know you still have it, but you know where.

Wow, what a concept. (I know there are born organized people who are either laughing their asses off at me, or scratching their heads in utter amazement that anybody has to be told these things. Just shut up.)

But then there's stuff that you aren't sure whether you'll ever need it again or not. Again, this is why it's on your desk/kitchen counter/coffee table. Because you haven't made up your mind yet what to do with it, and don't want to think about it right now.

Well, right now is when to think about it, and then never think about it again, ever.

The answer is simple.

WHEN IN DOUBT, FILE IT.

or....

WHEN IN DOUBT, THROW IT OUT.

It makes no difference.

Wait; let that sink in a minute.

IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

Simply figure out which answer relieves your stress. The idea of going ahead and filing everything so you know someday it will be there when you need it? Or the idea of tossing it, getting rid of it, knowing that if it's really important it will crop up again. "Hmm, this looks like a kind of cool photography course, I've always wanted to take a photography course, but I don't have time right now, maybe I should file it for future reference -- except by the time I ever think of it again this info will be so out of date it will be worthless -- but it looks like a good course maybe I should file it and at least know the instructor's name if I decide to look it up later...” My ultimate answer was "Trash it. If I ever decide to take a photography course I'll research it then."

It really does make no difference. It's just what makes you (or me) more relaxed. And in my case, the more stuff that ended up getting trashed, the better I felt.

And here is the magic.

Once you make that decision -- trash or file?

You never make it again.

Let that sink in.

You make that decision once, and never again. From that point forward, you know automatically what to do with those things. You're either going to file them or trash them. Because you know which makes you feel better.

So that's it. Handle what's on top and work your way down. If it can be done in two minutes or less, do it now. And decide once -- right now -- whether you'd rather have everything "just in case" or trash stuff you're not sure of. Decide now, then never have to think about it again.

(I think I'm going to GTD the kitchen next. Don't tell Sam. I think it's better to spring the next mountain on him by surprise, rather than have him stressed anticipating it. Heh.)

Breaking News

2006-04-03T21:51:00.000-05:00

Sources: DeLay to drop re-election race

Rep. Tom DeLay , who was forced to step down as House majority leader last year after being indicted, will drop out of his re-election race, two Republican congressional sources told CNN Monday. The surprising move comes one month after he easily won a contested Republican primary for his suburban Houston House seat.

rejoice

My 43 Folders

2006-04-03T16:15:00.000-05:00

NOTE: If you don't know what the "43 Folders" refer to, I'll be coming back later to 'splain it. If you've read David Allen's GETTING THINGS DONE you already know, and may have come here specifically to see these pics.

The question has been raised, if you are an "out of sight/out of mind" person and having your 43 folders in a file drawer doesn't work for you, how do you keep them in sight? Most answers have been pretty easy, but when I started to describe my situation I couldn't without pics, so here they are.

I bought the Christopher Lowell magazine storage thingy from Office Depot because I loved the look of it. I intended to use it on my desk to store project files I want to keep in front of my face. (See above, "out of sight/out of mind.") However, it didn't quite work. Because it wasn't quite deep enough for folders to slip straight down. It would be except that the horizontal woven rattan (if that's what it is) sticks out just far enough for folders to catch on and not go all the way down.

Because I loved the darn thing, I figured out that if the folders were put in diagonally they'd fit, so that's what I did.

In the meantime I was looking for a way to store my 43 Folders so that they'd be on my desktop but my desktop is very cluttered with other things I want/need on top of it, and I finally looked again at the magazine thingy and figured out a way to use it, and I love this not only because I get to have the very attractive Christopher Lowell office accessory (which looks good on my desk) but I like it because it has a small footprint on my desk, takes up little space between my monitor and tower, and truly does keep this stuff in front of my eyes.

I pulled out an old file pocket and recycled it by putting in the 43 folders and my current project files, and propped it into the magazine storer thingy (why can't I ever think of words when I need them?) at an angle and voila!

Not only does it keep things in front of me, but it's just snug enough that I can pull out the folders that I really want to catch my attention so that they stick out higher than the others.

You know, if I took nothing else from Getting Things Done, the P-Touch Labeler would have been worth the price. Because yes I knew they existed, but it seemed a silly waste of money for something you could do so easily yourself, not to mention that I'm so disorganized it would just be a time-waster and I'd eventually give it away .... Only not so. As David Allen says, when things are labeled this nicely, it really does make it easier to deal with them, and labeling is fun! Any time you can make a tedious job fun, that's a good thing. He also recommends you don't color coordinate folders because that makes things more complicated, not more easy. Since I love color I'm using colored folders, but not in any particular system (except for the months/days which I did figure would work better if they were the same color). I just grab a folder without worrying what color it is, and enjoy the fact that my files are bright and cheery.

Now, like I said, I'll explain "43 Folders" later. But for now -- this is what I've done, and I like it.

Oh, and duh, it's a magazine file.

Dog Question

2006-04-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

I have a gorgeous yellow lab named Jake. He was at the SPCA when I found him four years ago. His family had surrendered him because they were moving; he was 18 months old. I am still amazed that they could part with him.

I've never had a dog quite this big before; he weighs around 80 pounds, I think. He's a yard dog by choice. He prefers to be outside. But he's a gentleman inside and loves to play fetch with a stuffed toy. I toss it four or five feet away and he leaps as if he's about to run half a block to catch a frisbee, then pounces on it, then returns it to me, as if this is the best game in the world, even though there is no room to actually run.

I love Jake.

And he evidently kinda likes me a bunch, too. When I take him to the dog park he ignores the other dogs, and just enjoys having a bigger space to play fetch in. Once I saw a woman watching me closely and watching Jake and I finally wondered if she knew Jake, or knew his old owners, so I walked near her, and she said, "Do you know that dog never takes his eyes off of you?" I said, "Oh, I guess that's because he's a rescue from the SPCA and maybe he is afraid I'll leave him here." She said, "No, it's more than that." We kept chatting and I don't recall what else was said, but I remembered it when I took Jake to obedience class a couple of years later and the instructor told me much the same thing, as if it was kind of unusual. So I guess he feels bonded to me, maybe because I'm the one who rescued him?

Okay, so here is my question.

Jake doesn't bark a lot. He has a big gorgeous deep bark and I think it would scare somebody if they tried to break into my house and heard it, but he doesn't use it often. Our other dog, the sweetheart Abby, barks a lot more. Jake will watch her bark but doesn't bother most of the time. Which is why when we hear HIM bark, we start looking out windows to see why. (It's usually because there's another dog going by, but sometimes because its' a person.) As for growling, that's exceedingly rare. He and Abby play a fairly rough game of "who can get to the ball first" fetch, which means if he gets it she attacks him as they run back to me, and because he's over twice her size she can do anything to him without him caring. A couple of times she's evidently crossed the line because I've heard a scary low grumbly growl and she immediately backs off.

So basically he's a big old goofball who loves to play more than anything, and nothing in the world seems to bother him, maybe because his size gives him such an advantage he doesn't ever have to assert himself.

So here's my question.

When he's in the house with me and somebody rings the doorbell or comes to the door, he doesn't notice. He doesn't bark.

Is this simply the way he is, end of story?

Is there a way to teach him to react when somebody is at the door?

Or should I be grateful he doesn't want to attack everyone who walks through the door. (Which is just funny, thinking of a labrador retriever attacking everybody, instead of just wanting to love them to death.)

One more thing. I did see him be protective -- once. When I'd only had him a couple of weeks. I took him and Abby to the dog park, and they acted pretty much the way they acted at home. Separately. He wandered around by himself and with me, while she dove head first into the middle of the other dogs to sniff butts and play.

Suddenly I heard some pretty vicious snarling and turned to see a dog attacking Abby. It was a nine-month-old pit bull mix whose owners had brought it to the dog park to learn how to interact with other dogs. They quickly pulled it off and there was no harm done -- no skin broken or anything -- but before I could get there, Jake had shot from the other end of the park to Abby's side. By that point it was over, but the two of them stuck together the rest of the time, doing what he wanted to do -- stick with me, and avoid the other dogs.

That was the day they bonded -- they've been best buddies and playmates ever since.

I have no idea whether he'd act to protect me or not. Maybe he's just totally nonviolent and he's not gonna care if strangers come into the house.

Maybe he's got that protective streak but it won't show up unless he thinks it's necessary, which clearly doesn't include people ringing the doorbell or knocking at the door.

I dunno.

Do you?

One Special Moment

2006-04-02T18:12:00.000-05:00

I received this in email:

On Wednesday of next week, at two minutes and three
seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date
will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

Now, admit it. You needed to know that.

And now you know it, too!

Fool's Day

2006-04-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

The Fool, stepping into the unknown...

"Hey, clearly failure doesn't deter me!"

2006-03-31T20:44:00.000-06:00

While digging back through old posts I've stumbled across the above sentence twice, and both times it jumped out at me even though it was a throw away line buried deep in the entry. I think it sums me up pretty well. I'm rather proud of it, except for the "failure" part, which I guess is kind of a downer, that I keep butting my head against walls long after any normal person would have equated wall with pain and found a new path. I started to say it's a testimony to my passion and my drive, but well ... it's kind of a ... well, a testament to my pigheadedness, really.

Oh, but that wasn't what I was going to write about. I'm getting sidetracked.

I was -- am -- here to talk some more about analog stuff and moleskines and GTD stuff.

This entire thing confuses me, actually. I've had horrid handwriting all of my life. I hold the pen funny. Before I've written two paragraphs, my hand is cramping. My handwriting gets so bad that I literally can't decipher it myself when enough time has passed that I can no longer recall the context.

When writing checks I feel such a gut-gnawing need to Get The Damn Thing Written NOW that by the time I get to my signature, it's one of those squiggle lines like a celebrity would do. Would you believe I actually had a teenaged checker at the grocery store hand a check back to me and tell me to SIGN IT AGAIN? I mean, really, I was stunned. Who the heck did she think she was? (I signed it again.)

So why do I keep getting drawn back to writing by hand, on paper, with a pen?

I don't know. But I do.

It first started when I couldn't bring myself to buy an outlining program to help me keep track of plot points and things. I kept downloading trials and not really connecting with them, and finally I decided to try going back to index cards, and then I read Save the Cat and everything clicked. Index cards and a system that made sense to me -- that built on what I already know and do.

So I posted about it, and digger27 left a comment complimenting me on my analog approach, and I didn't know what he meant.

So here's the irony. I went to his blog ended up going to 43 Folders which took me to Getting Things Done . So his simple comment set me off on a renewed obsession with fountain pens, paper and all things analog ... and he only posted one more entry on his own blog before disappearing. (Digger, if you're still around, thanks a lot, guy! Sheesh!)

I think I'm sidetracked again.

Okay, so about the Moleskine. Diane isn't only the person who first introduced me to them (Thanks a lot, girl! Sheesh!) but she also pointed me to Fred, who devised a really cool system for using a Moleskine as an analog blog. It could easily be adapted to be a simple way of indexing anything you record in your Moleskine, not just blog-type items. (And yes, I know it doesn't look simple, but honestly, it is. It's just a blog on paper -- with contents, an index, etc. and with his system, it's even easy to cross-reference between subsequent Moleskines and other external references. Tres cool. (Oh yeah, Frédérick lives in that most romantic of North American cities, Quebec City, dreamy sigh.)

But even if you're not interested in using a Moleskine (yet, sucker), I think you may find his post of January 28, 2005 entertaining. He asked why people love their Moleskines, and the responses range from thoughtful to funny as hell. I admit a special fondness for the transcript of when Satan invented junior high school.

And yet another exploration of the allure of paper.

And then there's Gary Varner's Love is a Many Moleskine Thing. Holy cow, I knew something odd was going on when I started craving pens and journals (and I don't even keep a journal). Now I know the truth. Do you see how many freaking Moleskines he has going at any given time? This is worse than crack!

Speaking of which -- as if that's not enough -- it's just an entry level drug which leads us to the hard core, wallet-draining addiction to Levenger.

Oh, sure, I'd ordered from them before, but had always cast a perplexed eye at things like their 3x5 cards and accessories. Surely there weren't that many people who actually used them. I always assumed they were sucker-items, things that looked cool and enticed you to buy them, then look at them and say, "What the hell am I going to do with this stuff...?"

Meet the Hipster PDA.

Who needs expensive digital toys when you can do it all with index cards? No, wait -- I'm not kidding! Check it out! And there are pictures. Lots of pictures. (While you're at it, check out "gtd" on flickr, too.)

And if you don't want to keep your hPDA together with a clip, or any of the other clever (duct tape) (moleskine) hacks there, and if you don't want to get really crafty (a writer's hpda) and how did I miss (this?)--

Levenger to the rescue! As helpfully illustrated by rewl -- here and here.

(Did I mention that there is also a side-addiction to surfing the web looking for blog entries and photos about moleskines, hpdas, gtd? Sigh.)

So all of this is why I received yet another box from Levenger this morning. Why after deciding maybe my tickler file isn't quite working for me (as in, "out of sight, out of mind" -- I keep forgetting to look in the file drawer every morning), I'm recreating it as an index card file which will sit on my desk ....

Why I keep ordering fountain pens because I'm sure -- absolutely sure -- that the right pen (and color of ink -- I forgot to mention the ink addiction!) will entice me to remember to write everything down....

Why after forgetting to do weekly reviews for the past, um, several weeks, I'm going to switch to daily reviews (does that even make sense?)....

Why Sisyphus is my idol.

Because clearly failure doesn't deter me.

And my desk is still clean.

What About You?

2006-03-30T16:17:00.000-06:00

I'm a generally unfuckwitted, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, seizure-inducingly boring spod!

See how compatible you are with me!

Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Retro Pooks

2006-03-30T08:34:00.000-06:00

So it's not enough that I'm going retro with index cards, with a paper planner, with fountain pens.

Oh no, that was in no way retro enough.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started when I walked into the salon.

No, wait, it started before then.

It started when my mommy and daddy did "what mommys and daddys do" and sperm and egg did what they do and DNA started weaving its magic spell and I ended up with fine, straight hair.

In case I didn't state my case strongly enough -- FINE (not as in "okay," but as in spiderweb), STRAIGHT (not as in "straight, glossy" but as in limp, flat) hair.

Fast forward through years of tears and tangles, perms and mousses and gels, to where I finally ended up, with a bob that is supposed to turn under like Louise Brooks...

And instead usually looked like limp, straight ... I don't know, just bad hair. (Sorry, no pictures of that.)

Okay, back to where it all started the other day when I walked into the salon.

I told Thu that I needed to shake things up a little. Do something different -- maybe even try my natural hair color (which she vetoed, ha! I told you my DNA gypped me in the hair department) or something new in the style (I looked at some pictures and fearfully pointed to a feathery one and said, "Will my hair do this or will it just limp?) and confidently said, "I'll fix you."

I came out with my hair more auburn than red, which is fun for a change. I came out with a cute layeredy, feathery, sorta hair that is quasi-Louise Brooks but different.

And I like it!

So, you're wondering, is it retro hair she's talking about? What is so extreme it is worthy of a blog entry? (Not that cute hair isn't, but really, I mean.)

As she's blowing my hair dry with a bit of mousse, she's got three round hairbrushes (maybe more, I lost track and couldn't see the back of my head, anyway) and she'd blow, wrap hair, leave the brush in my hair and move to the next spot. Chatting away. I'm watching, wondering how many hairbrushes I'm going to have to buy and how I'm going to do this, and she says, "When you do this, you probably want to use curlers."

Um, wait. What was that again?

"Curlers. Just get big ones, leave them in for a few minutes, when the mousse is dry...."

Houston, we have a problem.

While my hair is fine and straight, there is also a lot of it. A LOT. Like, when I used to get those 80s perms, my hair would blow up like Bozo. This means, there are 30 gazillion fine little hairs trapping moisture together and it takes for-freaking-ever to dry.

So after going to the store and buying curlers (yikes!), I sat for "a few minutes" then touched the curlers and realized, that hair is nowhere near dry. I waited longer, and no progress.

I finally took them out one at a time and one at a time blew it almost dry then rolled it back up to finish. A half hour later? Still sticky with mousse.

People, when I start wondering how much a hairdryer costs -- not a handheld, but a truly retro hairdryer costs, it is time for somebody to bitch-slap me and force me to step slowly away from the styling products.

Please. Before someone gets hurt.

Jane Approves

2006-03-27T22:54:00.000-06:00

Update on GTD and roses and such.

I haven't been Getting Things Done particularly efficiently lately, but the desk is still clear, there are still floors in my office, and so I'm not complaining. (And I'll tackle that in-basket tomorrow and get back on track.)

The roses are starting to bloom, and so I picked a few, added a bit of salvia, and tried to arrange it in a tiny little vase. Only they kept drooping, and sliding around, looking messy, so I finally just stuck a rubber band around the stems and stuck them in the vase and added water.

I think Jane Austen approves.

For those who care: orangey roses -- "Pat Austin," dark pink buds -- "Old Blush," whitish bloom and pale pink bud -- "Marie Pavier," purple salvia -- "Diana."

Big Baby

2006-03-26T20:30:00.000-06:00

Naw, not me. I'm no big baby when it comes to LSU beating the Longhorns in the Elite Eight.

My mamma was an LSU Tiger and some of my earliest memories are of looking at the Tiger (Mike, right?) in the tiger cage on LSU's campus when we were visiting relatives in Baton Rouge. I guess there's a smidgeon of purple and gold in my blood from way back.

Louisiana needs some good things to happen and it sounds like those guys have been through a lot together.

So now that they've eliminated my Longhorns I can say without hesitation or reservation --

GO TIGERS!

ETA: Oh my gosh -- George Mason is in the Final Four?!? And I've already sworn my allegiance to LSU? I love Cinderella stories!

Expertise

2006-03-24T07:48:00.000-06:00

What kind of aura am I sending out these days?

First one of my students (I teach adult continuing ed classes) asks me, "If somebody's been drinking too much, been really drunk the night before, would they be hungry the next morning?"

Um, do I look like the expert witness on such things?

Evidently. "No, the last thing they'd want is food." At least, in my experience, not that I have any, I mean, ahem.

Today I get an email from toni:

What do they call the board thingie when they're betting on football and they have the scores in columns and wherever your name is, that intersection is what you have a bet on, score-wise? Does that question even make sense? I want to call it something speicific if there's a universal name (or is it simply a football board?).

Okay, I have no freaking idea. I don't bet on football. Football is too important, it would be like betting on a church service.

Heh.

But it does make me wonder what I'm going to be asked next, and why people come to me with these questions.

In the meantime, I have a question of my own.

So I have a character -- a magnificent arrogant bastard of a character. A pianist and composer. He's also hot. And I named him Sebastian. And somebody whom I will not name is "sorry" to inform me that she thinks the name is "icky."

So, taking votes. (Not that I would actually change it, mind you.)

Sebastian: Hot or icky?

And last but not least, my team plays toni's team tomorrow night.

Hook 'em.

How DO you pronounce it, anyway?

2006-03-21T16:40:00.000-06:00

So I'm listening to the Terrell Owens/Jerry Jones press conference, and suddenly I hear Terrell's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, talking about how Jerry and Terrell had formed a relationship on the flight to Dallas Saturday, how they'd bonded and how moving it was to see....

Was I the only one that heard Gustavo Santaolalla strumming his guitar in the background?

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

So, what do I think? I think it's going to be fun to watch. I think anybody who feels like Terrell Owens dishonored the "Star" in the middle of Texas Stadium and thus forfeited any chance to wear one on his helmet needs to buy a clue.

It was theater, pure theater, and when George Teague nailed him (and got kicked out of the game and fined) that was pure theater, too.

And a lot of fun to watch!

It was fun to hate Terrell, but hey, there was a time when we hated Deion and then he became a Cowboy and look how nicely that turned out!

Nine years without winning a playoff game is downright embarrassing.

I say, go for it. And if it doesn't work?

Next!

And will somebody definitively settle this? For years I heard TerrELL. Now I'm hearing TERRell.

How DO you pronounce his name, anyway?

"Get your popcorn ready...

2006-03-18T18:18:00.000-06:00

" ... because it's going to be a show."

Terrell Owens
Dallas Cowboy

Right now, I don't know what else to say.

But I'll think of something.

Trust me.

Saving the Cat Storyboard

2006-03-17T08:22:00.000-06:00

Previously, in Pooks's attempts to save the cat....

I had one row of my storyboard filled out. The top row, the first act. Now I have the thing pretty full, and the holes are in the third act which Blake Snyder says is pretty typical and not a prob. (And now that I look at the white cards on the bottom row of the pic, there are not that many holes, geez. I know how the romcom works out, and the subplots. I've just been too lazy to slap the post-its up there, which I should fix, huh?)

This brings us to the actual implementation of the storyboard.

TA-DA!

Okay, it's messy, but it's working for me.

I bought a black foamcore board, divided it into four rows of ten blocks, ending with the requisite 40. (Note to self: Next time self wants black, ask self "how will self actually mark on black?" before buying. Second note to self: Thank mom for pulling white tape out of her Mom's Bag O' Tricks (tm) so I could mark the board.)

After dividing the board into four rows of ten, I realized that the 3X5 cards would have to be vertical instead of horizontal. That was no big prob, though, since I knew I was going to use post-its and this actually works a little better.

I used 4x6 fucshia index cards for major beats -- turning points, midpoints, inciting incidents, etc. (Yes, I'm holding on to much of my old terminology instead of incorporating Snyder's. It's just easier for me.)

I used 3x5 white index cards for other scenes, reserving the right to use other colors as needed -- but I never did.

I only wrote directly on the first three cards. I figured out that wasn't really necessary and after that only wrote on the post-its. Post-its will be added as I write, to track characters and subplots more than I've already done, and to remind me of anything I need reminding of. The yellow, blue, purple and green post-its each represent a different character.

What I found most useful was the culmination of what Snyder said in his book -- that the prep work, even the busy work, IS part of the process.

I immersed myself in source material, and as soon as I began to get glimmers of story, I started working on the board. Because I don't absorb details well, I found myself sitting at my desk with my storyboard on the easel beside me, with post-its, scissors, gluestick* and other sundry playthings around me, and the book, Save the Cat.

I dashed off scene/dialogue/plot things and slapped them on the board, as I constantly dug back into the book rereading the section on "Bad Guys Close In" or "Midpoint" or whatever.

Because I wanted my board more detailed, I made labels (using my Brother P-Touch label-maker as recommended in getting things done -- and yes it does make a big difference to have something actually neatly labeled instead of my mess scrawl) and used a green background if it was a one-page thing -- like "Catalyst" or "Midpoint." And yellow background if it was an entire section of the script -- like "Debate" or "Fun & Games." (The yellow got crazy since I was using a paper cutter to cut yellow strips of post-its. I am not crafty, and it shows!)

But the back and forth between the book and the board, and the figuring out how to define things for my own clarification fed the creative process, because for several days the ideas were just exploding.

I'm now at the point where I just start writing. (See my progress bar? I already have. Of course now I also have to remember how to do percentages, gah! Numbers aren't my friends!) But writing involves more research, since I'm having to dig out info about the worlds/professions my characters inhabit. It's never easy, is it? But still, this process has been fast, a lot faster than my usual lay around for weeks or months waiting for inspiration.

So far, Save the Cat is getting high marks from me.

So to recap:

February 22: I pitched the idea/logline to the producer and she loved it.

March 13: I finished the plot outline.

March 15: I started writing.

Okay, I'm scaring myself.

I think I need to go sit down and take deep breaths for awhile....

* I looked at several places before I found "restickable" gluestick. Maybe I didn't know what to call it. I just described it as "gluestick that uses post-it glue, so you can remove it and restick it and it doesn't harden," but people kept telling me they'd never heard of it. I finally found some at Staples. But I used it to put the index cards and labels up.

After the Oscars

2006-03-14T20:04:00.000-06:00

I've met Larry McMurtry and consider it one of my greatest honors that he signed my copy of Lonesome Dove right under: "Merry Christmas, Mom -- we love you," and my sons' names. Gee, I feel like he's part of the family, now! I've been to his book store in Archer City. I love his books, the way he writes women, the way he captures nuance and character.

I've met Diana Ossana. We talked for about half an hour. I had no idea she had any connection with Larry McMurtry at the time, not until later. She was gracious, helpful, gave me career advice and I have often thought about that visit and how I hope someday to have the opportunity to let her know how much I appreciated it. (I also look back at a couple of comments I made, like Lonesome Dove being one of my favorite books, and the look in her eyes as she was trying to figure out whether or not I was brown-nosing. I'm so glad I had no idea at the time.)

I wasn't overly interested in Brokeback Mountain at first. It just sounded depressing and sad, and I was not in the mood to be depressed and sad. But then I figured out who had written the screen adaptation and had to go, and as I've written elsewhere, I was so captivated I ended up having to go back again and take more friends with me.

Seeing Brokeback win awards at the Golden Globes made my night. Finding out how much Diana Ossana had to do with bringing the story to the screen was inspirational, and I was thrilled to see them chalking up awards.

Seeing them win for best screenplay, and seeing Ang Lee win for best director at the Academy Awards was fabulous.

Seeing Crash win for best picture caught me off guard, but I've seen bigger surprises at the Oscars, and I have to admit that I just relished the underdog winning, and let it slide. Yes, I'd wanted Brokeback to win, but I could see how Crash could win. It even occurred to me that with so many strong contenders it could have been a very close vote between three or four films, with Crash edging out the others.

And then I forgot about it.

Until I read Annie Proulx's rant in the Guardian.

I'm appalled. I thought the class was supposed to be in "literature" and Hollywood was supposed to have a corner on the crass. Evidently not.

I will never be the writer she is. I will never win a Pulitzer. And I'm certainly no expert on film, and the jury is still out as to whether I'll ever have any success there. But after sitting on this for several days, I decided to go ahead and respond to it.

I thought her content was abysmally ignorant of film and her attitude was indeed too sour to expose to public scrutiny. And remember, I loved Brokeback Mountain and would have loved it to win.

" (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.)"

Excuse me, Ms. Proulx, but the Independent Spirit awards are based on the MERIT of INDEPENDENT FILM. Now, if that's the only merit you believe should be considered, maybe you do think that's the only award to pay attention to, but that's about the equivalent of saying, if you want smart judging pay attention to the Animation category, or the Foreign Feature category. It's one part of the industry, and not the only one deserving of recognition.

"We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture."

I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that LA-based Academy voters are probably exposed to more racism issues (subtle and overt) than overt prejudice over gay issues, because gays have been more assimilated into the arts than minorities have. And yes, I do know that many Hollywood folks are still in the closet, but it's not because of industry politics, but because of general public perception. And the fact is, a racial minority can rarely be closeted, and will have to deal with racism daily. Am I saying one is worse than the other? No I'm certainnly not, but Ms. Proulx certainly is, by insisting that racism is "yesterday's" issue and the story SHE wrote is the contemporary one. Excuse me? Then she claims they're out of touch with their own segregated city .... um, I'm not sure what she meant by that, but when she called CRASH "Trash," she lost any respect I might have had for her opinion. Has she actually seen it? It was a wonderful film, far more complex and difficult to make work than Brokeback. There are many reasons why it could attract votes that have nothing to do with Hollywood being homophobic. How about, it was filmed in LA, brought work to LA, not Canada? It was filled with stars willing to take non-starring roles to be a part of a story that spoke to them. How about the fact that it didn't have the push and pr rush Brokeback had, yet hung on as a small independent film that would not die...

And so what if DVDs of CRASH were sent to all SAG-members? A member of my family (who is a SAG member) got one here in Dallas. But if they'd sent copies of HERBIE GOES TO VEGAS, does she think those idiot actors would have voted for it over Brokeback?

" But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don't know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?"

Give me a freaking break. Yes it's damned hard to portray a character that the public has very, very, very real ideas about -- whether it's a real person or beloved characters like Scarlett and Rhett, Harry and Snape. Damn, it's hard when public expectations are sky-high and people are poised and ready to pounce in anger if you not only don't get the emotional content right, but also dont do it the way they wanted to see it -- whether you're portraying Johnny Cash or Truman Capote or June Carter.

I'm assuming she must know of what she speaks when she talks about "cold words on a page." All righty, then! Those must be her cold words she's talking about, because I have to assume from the script that McMurtry's and Ossana's were warmer. As difficult as Ledger and Gyllenhaal's performances were -- and I would have been delighted to see either of them win -- sorry, Annie, but not enough people had read your short story to come in and be thrown out of the story if the guys "got it wrong." They had to reach for deep emotional depths, as did the guys who were portraying real people. They did a superb job, as did the guys who won. The issue isn't that it's harder for Ledger and Gyllenhaal than it is for Phoenix, Hoffman and Straithearn. You could build a case that it's easier IF you believe that this is a valid argument to begin with -- but I don't accept your argument in the first place.

And if you're really believing that the only reason Brokeback didn't win best picture is because of those homophobic heffalumps -- what about Hoffman's Oscar? Wait, maybe they didn't realize Capote was gay. (ahem)

And when you're keeping score? Brokeback's three Oscars include Screenplay and Director -- which puts it head and shoulders above the technical awards for King Kong. To compare their scores like an Olympic medal count is ludicrous.

And finally, how sad that you've diminished the great achievement that is the film, Brokeback Mountain, by treating its recognitions, its awards, its acclaim, its box office, and whatever positive impact it may have had on peoples' lives by acting as if none of it means anything without the Oscar for Best Picture.

My warmest congratulations to all involved with Brokeback Mountain.

And to all those nominated who didn't win, and managed to keep their sour grapes off the record and out of the public eye, and be gracious and generous of spirit in public.

Chalk up another one to the Literary Hall of Shame for novelists who make fools of themselves dissing Hollywood. I guess Anne Rice and Tom Clancy needed company, anyway.

(Diane addresses Proulx's rant from another direction, and as usual, much better than I do!)

.

STC Review

2006-03-11T23:25:00.000-06:00

By the way, I finally got around to writing a real review of save the cat in my reading blog.

I Got Kinky

2006-03-11T20:53:00.000-06:00

So I went and saw Kinky tonight and signed his petition to get him on the ballot for governor. I didn't get my picture taken with him but sat at the bar about four feet away from him while he signed and took pictures and signed and took pictures, etc.

So I bought a lot of stuff, including his CD (recorded in Sausalito in 1973) with such classic Kinky-hits as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed," and "Ride 'Em, Jewboy."

Here he is signing my CD:

And in case you're wondering why the hell anybody would take him seriously (from his campaign site):

Kinky's Common-Sense Priorities
Education

Texas has the second-largest population of any state in the country and two of the ten largest cities. That's an awfully big cart to pull with the horsepower we're currently giving our kids in Texas schools. An educated workforce and top-notch schools are essential to keeping our state attractive to new business, but we're failing the test.

Texas has the 8th largest economy in the world, but we're 1st in drop-out rates and 49th in education spending in the country.

Teachers' salaries in Texas are over $6,000 below the national average. This lack of respect for the people who do our state's most important job must stop. As governor, Kinky will work to make sure that teachers are paid what they're worth. Period.
The TAKS test and its predecessor, TAAS, were invented essentially to make legislators look good on education. But studies show that rigid enforcement of standardized test scores doesn't help kids learn or make teachers more effective. Teach to the test and kids will learn the test—but not much else.

Healthcare

Texas ranks rock-bottom in providing for the basic needs of its youngest and poorest residents. More than one fifth of Texas children have no health insurance at all.

In 2003, Texas legislators slashed the Children's Health Insurance Program, pulling the rug out from under 170,000 kids. Not only did this put more of our children at risk, it ended up costing the state tens of thousands of health care jobs and $16 billion in lost productivity. Kinky believes this is reckless and short-sighted—no way to invest in the future of Texas.

We're a state that prides itself on friendliness and responsibility, but the message we're sending our kids is that if you're going to be born poor, you'd better not be born in Texas.

Renewable Energy

It's time for Texas to reclaim bragging rights as an energy icon. As governor, Kinky will accomplish that by encouraging investment and innovation in new methods of electricity generation and new fuels like biodiesel.

Think these are fringe technologies? Think again. Wind power plants, solar power arrays, and landfill gas capture systems are already in operation across Texas in cities from Fort Stockton to Fort Worth. Texas has been called "the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy," and firms from TXU to Kyocera are already clamoring for a piece of the action.

Despite our staggering potential, only 0.7% of Texas' energy needs come from renewable sources. That puts us 51st in the nation, behind even Washington D.C.

Biodiesel—it's good enough for Willie Nelson's tour bus, and the city of Denton is using it to fuel their entire fleet of diesel trucks. Biodiesel is fuel you can grow. That's good for farmers, good for the air, good for the Texas energy industry and good for Texans. With biodiesel, everybody wins but OPEC.

No way is a Democrat going to beat the jerk who is presently governor of Texas. But Kinky has a shot, and not only do I agree with his campaign slogan, "How hard can it be?" (considering who has recently inhabited our governor's mansion), I also agree with his, "Why the hell not?"

Vote Kinky.

Thank God somebody's raising these issues.

Or as Kinky says, "May the God of your choice bless you."

GTD while STC

2006-03-10T15:41:00.000-06:00

getting things done while saving the cat.

I've come up with a logline (still being refined, but it's a good logline at this point), and have come up with scene cards for the first act of the new script, and others. This morning I used post-its on top of index cards to start the storyboard. This is the top row; Act I.

I know you can't tell, but there's some really funny stuff there. Really.

And I can't wait to start writing. Really.

But I can't, because I'm going to keep going until I've outlined the rest of the script before I start writing, because I am doing this the Saving the Cat way. For once, I'm going to try and use logic and planning and the left side of my brain before I let the right side play.

Really.

But I couldn't keep going today because I had other things come up that called me away from it.

And then I came back to find post-its, index cards, gluestick, makeup, pens and pencils, the book SAVE THE CAT, my iPod and headphones, a bottle of Advil, an empty Jack-in-the-Box cup, a beat sheet, nail clippers, two moleskines, a telephone, water and a pill bottle and stuff all over my desk.

Writing is a messy business.

So I'm now whisking all my tools back into their proper places so that my desk will only have the things that actually belong on there until I can get to work on Act II.

You know the kinds of things.

A brass swan, Jane Austen, wooden frog, art deco ashtrays, metal sculpture lady on cell phone, white tiger, stuffed bird. The stuff that belongs on my desk.

Even though it is more than a little startled to realize there really is a desk there, and not just a mountain of papers, complete with landslides.

Because of GTD, I now have Organized Drawers, not to mention Places Where Things Belong.

Jane Austen is pleased.

Talisman

2006-03-09T22:21:00.000-06:00

I've found an image -- nay, a talisman -- for my new project.

Isn't she cute?

Almost as cute as this little guy. Although he looks so innocent, it makes the whip seem like overkill.

Everything's Coming Up Roses (lots of pics)

2006-03-08T16:16:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I drove with friends to East Texas to buy roses.

If you need roses, you should check out Chamblee's in Tyler (on Hwy 69, not 64 as we first thought, but that's another story) and ask for Renee. She is their rose expert, and since they ship roses all over, she seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of roses. Even better, she doesn't mind saying when she doesn't know something, either. But wherever you live, she can tell you how a certain rose should do there, how it will grow and look, etc.

Since I know you're just dying to see, these are the roses I bought. Four David Austin roses.

The first thing I did was buy one that is too big for any spot I have for it. I was told I could keep it trimmed smaller, and I knew I'd be better off getting one that didn't sprawl in the first place, but I fell in love with this rose. The picture doesn't do it justice, since it has yellow centers when it fully opens, and as the bloom gets spent it's more peachy-pale. There were three blooms to see and sniff -- and it smells wonderful! I could NOT resist her. So I got her. Her name is Pat Austin.

I bought Tamora to blend with Pat Austin. They should be great companions, colorwise. I wish I could say I picked her out next for that purpose, but actually I didn't. She was almost the last one I picked, out of a sense of responsibility. "Now that I have all these different colors, maybe I should kind of figure out how they might blend," which led me to Tamora. She also has yellows in her. I like these roses that aren't solid one color, that have shades of other hues.

I asked Renee about Mr. Lincoln. ( Mr. Lincoln is an ugly stalky, thorny hybrid tea with exquisite red blooms on longish stems, and the most fabulous fragrance you can imagine. Huge red blooms, and when only one is open it fills the entire yard with its fragrance.) Renee insisted that there were several red David Austin roses that smell as wonderful as he does, and rattled off three -- William Shakespeare 2000 was one, I forget the next, and then -- "What did you say?" "The Prince." This is the pic from the David Austin website.

I knew even before I found that one open red-purple bloom that I would be buying The Prince.

And I did. This is the picture I took. See the yellow stamens? To me they just set it off. Not all the roses seemed to have them, and I found myself turning away from the solid colored roses with no shading, no yellows. That may be the only thing some of my roses have in common. Green foliage and yellow centers.

After wandering between bushes and sniffing, listening to Renee answer my friend Pat's questions, and some of my own, I settled on John Clare. If I'm not mistaken, I think he had a bit of peachy/orangey tones on his spent blossoms, but I could be wrong. He was the right size and a pretty color and a lovely scent -- they ALL have wonderful scents, which is a requirement for me -- so I bought him.

If you're not familiar with David Austin roses, they evidently combine the best of the antiques with the best of the modern roses, and end up with beautiful fragrant blooms that don't bloom once and spend the rest of the year just being green bushes, or worse, stalky, thorny sticks. I can vouch for the fragrance of those I bought.

But as I was writing my check I discovered that Candace (who had been kidnapped by a darling Pomeranian-looking dog and thus left the rose-sniffing to us while she sat in the cool shop) had found another rose for me. She knows that I happen to have a weakness for single roses. And somebody from a nursery in Longview came into Chamblees to pick up an order to take back to his own place to sell, and he told Candace all about them. I told the guy who was ringing me up, "Would you add one of those to my bill, and go pick me out a really good one?" He did, he was such a gentleman. I sat there and drank the last peach juice drink they had in their case, which I accused him of hiding for himself, since he's the one who first recommended it, then decided maybe he'd already finished them all off.

The last rose is an unusual antique with different colored blooms on the same bush. While this picture shows what a single rose looks like -- in this case only five petals, yellow center, very lovely color here -- the thing about the mutibalis is that it could be any color. The bush I have has one white bloom on it right now.

I did a lot of digging today, and soil-amending, and planting, and mulching. I do hope they get enough sun and water and whatnot, because one they're established and it really gets hot, I tend to leave things to fend for themselves. I've got most of them planted in a long row so that it will end up being a rose-hedge, I think.

But there were a couple of things I was going to tell you, before I forget. First of all, Renee pointed out to us that the pictures on the David Austen website are of these roses in England, and many of them look different or behave different in other climates. For example, some of the ones that appear to have rich color in England may be softer in the Texas heat and even fade out to almost-white when it's really hot. Pat and I tried to avoid the ones that bleach out, but time will tell.

But the other thing, and this amuses me to no end -- some of the roses that are compact tidy shrubs in England get to Texas and -- sprawl. Send out 8-foot shoots. Grow ten feet tall.

And all I could think was, well of COURSE they do. This IS Texas, after all.

The other thing?

The Fairy lived:

And that's okay, because I bought enough smelly roses to put up with one that doesn't smell. For now, anyway. But The Fairy, don't get too comfortable. I may still change my mind.

(Aiming stink-eye at The Fairy!)

How in the freaking hell?

2006-03-07T23:08:00.000-06:00

Would somebody please tell me -- somebody in Houston, please -- somebody who actually lives and votes in his district --

How in the freaking hell Tom Delay could have 20,000 people vote for him AGAIN?

What is in your water, people?

(No, this isn't an invitation for everybody to pile on. I'm hoping somebody from Houston actually has an answer.)

My Primary Colors

2006-03-07T08:36:00.001-06:00

Today is the Texas Primary voting for the November elections and --

I'm saving myself for KINKY.

Oh! Tonight's the Night!

2006-03-05T18:02:00.000-06:00

I think I should have a lot of strong opinions about Oscars. Some years I do.

This year there are so many films I loved, and none are in the running that I hated, so I have few strong feelings about anything.

But I can't wait.

Even in years when I didn't see many movies, I would be glued to the television until the bitter end.

I love Oscars. I love watching movie stars on Oscar night. (Dolly Parton is being interviewed even as I type!) I'm watching now and thinking, "I've been there. I remember that place!"

I'm a movie-loving dork.

Have you ever been way early to a movie? So early that you're the only person there, that the music hasn't even started yet, that it's just you, the quiet, the softly lit red drapes covering the magic screen way down there in front of you? Have you ever noticed how holy that moment feels, like being in a church -- no, like a cathedral?

This is probably the prayingest day in Hollywood. And no telling how many are shooting their way heavenward right now. "God, I promise, I PROMISE, let me win, and I swear, I'll never [insert something I don't even want to think about here] again!" "Jesus CHRIST don't let him be drunk again, tonight!" "For God's sake make sure the five-second delay is working!" "Oh ye gods and little fishes, don't let me pee myself if I win...."

Tonight is the Holiest of Holy Days for those who worship at the altar of celluloid. Only instead of wine and bread, it's beer and popcorn.

"And the winner is ... "

We'll know soon.

Remember the Alamo

2006-03-03T17:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Texas Independence Day. I usually try to post William Barret Travis's famous Letter from the Alamo on March 2, but with all my computer woes at the moment, I am chagrined to admit --

I, a fifth-generation Texan -- a TEXIAN, by God --

Forgot the Alamo.

But I found this, a letter that was posted 160 years ago today.

I'd never read this one before. Short. Simple. His last request.

And so now, remembering....

To David Ayers
March 3, 1836

Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune; but if the country be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country.

The letter to David Ayers is the last known letter written
by Travis before the fall of the Alamo on the morning of
March 6, 1836.

William Barret Travis died at his post on the cannon
platform at the northeast corner of the fortress.

He was 26 years old.

Programming Question

2006-03-02T13:19:00.000-06:00

Could somebody please tell me how to better organize my sidebar so that I can have links to all writing posts, GTD posts, moleskine posts, etc?

Or does the blogspot template I'm using make it impossible to do except the way I'm already doing it -- just keep adding categories and having all the posts listed beneath?

This sidebar could get very long if I keep doing it this way, and I haven't even added any categories other than the writing one.

Thanks.

Elementary

2006-02-26T21:19:00.000-06:00

Somebody asked me if I had it to do over again, would I buy another Element.

Heck yeah.

It's fun to drive. Six speakers and a subwoofer. A jack so I can plug the iPod straight into the dash and use the E's sound system. You can also plug in a laptop and listen to the audio with that same sound system. Tres fun!

Capacity, unbelievable. Head room, leg room, and the most dog friendly vehicle you can imagine. First week I had it, I loaded up Jake the Yellow Lab and took him to the dog park.

If I'd been thinking, I would have thought, "Um, it's been raining. Um, it will be muddy. Um, I have a new vehicle."

Not thinking, I dashed into the dog park and Jake proceeded to have fun in the mud and I proceeded to have fun watching him, and when the few other people were using towels and blankets to wipe their dogs down, I just opened the door and let Jake leap in. Mud all over the floor.

But, of course, no problem. No carpet! So the floor got muddy, I took Jake home, took a shower myself, later on went and wiped the floor with a wet rag, end of problem.

Was it something I'd have done on purpose? Probably not. But as it turned out, it was just one more reason to love my E.

The back seats are higher than the front seats -- stadium seating! Great views for everybody. The back seats and front seats all flatten so you can sleep in it should you want to, or so I'm told. I haven't tried and don't anticipate trying to. But it's a cool option.

So, what are the down sides?

It only seats four. If that's a problem for you, well, yeah, that's a problem.

Mileage isn't great. I don't know how it compares to other SUVs. It's definitely not designed to be aerodynamic, but I knew that when I bought it. On the road, the best I've gotten is 24 mpg. In town in the heat of the summer with air conditioning blowing full blast, it's gotten as bad as 18.5.

The "suicide doors" (not really -- they are totally safe, unlike the old suicide doors from whence the term comes) make it like a two door for people in the back seat. They can't open their door unless you open the front door first. In parking lots, getting in and out of the back seat can sometimes be a bit challenging if the parking spaces are tight. You get used to it, but it's different.

On the other hand, it makes it very easy to get things in and out of the E, especially large or awkward packages.

I would buy another E in a heartbeat.

And it's orange!

Foursome

2006-02-23T23:00:00.000-06:00

So I'm surfing and checking out sites and stop by ronniebee and see his link to biorhythms.

I don't know what it all means, but evidently Barbra Streisand, Nicolas Cage, Liam Neeson and I are all quite incredibly compatible for the next 28 days.

I guess I'd better not turn off the cell phone.

Somebody might call!

Move Me

2006-02-22T15:07:00.000-06:00

I need help, y'all.

Tell me what music makes you mooove. I'm putting together an iPod playlist, some from my own CDs, some from iTunes.

I've got some vintage rock (Hendrix, Cross Town Traffic), roadhouse blues (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Look at Little Sister), swing (Glen Miller, In the Mood, Tommy Dorsey, Sing, Sing, Sing), Latin (Ricky Martin, Cup of Life, La Vida Loca) (shut up), pop (Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone) (shut UP) and more stuff that maybe I shouldn't admit....

I'm really not a C&W girl, but beyond that --

Tell me what music pumps you up, moves your groove, energizes your bunny?

I'm trying not to be a lazy slug and need all the help I can get!

Hot Air

2006-02-21T23:15:00.000-06:00

A picture from the 2005 Plano Balloon Festival.

Just because.

She Memed Me

2006-02-15T08:26:00.000-06:00

Diane did it, so now I shall.

Four Jobs I've Had:

Concessions at a movie theater -- Ah, the memories. I grew up around movies, and this was my first job ever. I put a guitar on layaway and paid for it each week with the money I got from working. I was in high school. And I had a target on my back and didn't know it. My mother was secretary to the general manager of the theater chain, which is how I got the job. The other kids who worked there pretty much hated me once they found that out, but were nice to my face, and I couldn't figure out the mixed signals, but what the hey, it was my first job and I was getting money and I felt very grown up. One night they were talking about the lie detector tests that were coming up in a couple of months -- evidently an annual event. And the girl who worked the shift with me explained casually that when asked "Have you ever stolen anything," it was important to say, "Yes." And then explain, "Popcorn. We always grab popcorn and snack on it while we're working our shifts." She said you never get in trouble for stealing popcorn, and it covers you for other things. I didn't get it. I mean, I understood what she was saying and laughed because it seemed more like a joke than anything. I didn't "get" that there might be anything more. Then a few nights later when I was getting off my shift, she and one of the ushers handed me a bunch of candy. Said, "Take this, it's free." Well I wasn't THAT stupid. But they kept insisting, they'd found a box in the storeroom that wasn't on the books, so everybody was taking some. I finally took a couple of bars and gave them to the friend who was picking me up. For some reason the job didn't last much longer -- oh wait, I remember. The choir's annual musical was coming up and I needed to be available to paint scenery and rehearse every night, so I quit.

It was years later, many years, that I thought back on the few months I worked at the theater and began to wonder, what was going on there? I mentioned it to my mom. Oh, they had a big shakeup there within a year of me leaving. Lots of stealing and stuff going on. So either I was being set up to share blame if it happened, or take blame? I dunno. I'm sure glad I was in the choir.

Sold children's shoes Ugh. Let's move on.

Customer service, City of Dallas Water Utilities -- Well, I'm good on the phone. I rocked at that. It got kind of messy when they figured out I was pregnant when they hired me, but they couldn't say anything, and I set records for phone calls handled. Nobody who knows me well would be surprised at that. I mean, me. Phone. 'Nuff said.

Videographer -- Came up because of the resident storm chaser and the kinds of jobs he was offered regarding weather, video, etc. And somehow I started taking his overflow. Next thing you know, I'm a videographer. Who knew?

Four movies I can watch over and over again:

Yes, you've heard this before, but she asked! The Lion in Winter. And again, and again, and again. I bought the DVD before I had a DVD player.

About a Boy That one caught me by surprise. I remember seeing it in the theater and thinking the ending was really really really sappy. Thinking I wasn't sure I liked it all THAT much. But then I got it from Netflix and watched it. And the next day found myself slipping it in again and watching it. And then (although I didn't realize it at the time) I got anemic and found myself spending way too much time dozing on the sofa, and I'd plug in Hugh Grant and Toni Collette and they were just very comforting for me. I finally bought the damn thing, and I still like it a lot.

Moonstruck Damn, I love this one. I love the family dynamics, the over-the-top scenery-chewing, the "Snap outta it!" and the sugar cubes in champagne.... I watched this the first time loving every moment of it, but with a hard knot in my stomach because I didn't know how it would end, and knew that if it didn't end just right, with just the right wonderful emotional note, I would be so bitterly disappointed -- and it's one of the few movies that I know I literally would have gotten right back in line to see immediately, and in fact tried to convince my friend to do just that, but she had other commitments. I even loved Norman Jewison's follow up film so much I own it in DVD and watch it more often than probably anybody else on earth. I didn't do that well and nobody seems to remember it, but I love it, too. Only You It's more of a guilty pleasure, but that doesn't stop me from loving its twisty-turny plot and its gorgeous Italian scenery and its sheer romantic nature.

This is hard. Partially because there are a number of films that I like enough to see over and over, and I've named the three that stand out. (Think, think, think.) And no, I don't count Only You because it's one of the crowd, but I felt like mentioning it because of the Norman Jewison thing. (Think, think, think.) There are a lot of films that I love for many different reasons, but have some major element that ultimately stops me from actually wanting to see them over and over. Maybe they rip my heart out and I just can't suffer that often. Or, like Bringing Up Baby I could watch the first half dozens of times but somehow the second half doesn't hold up as well for me, or The Philadelphia Story which suffers from the time period and has some aspects of its resolution that are downright annoying.

Oh hell, I've named enough movies so let's move on.

Four places I've lived:

Dallas
Dallas
Dallas
Dallas

(Yes, there have been a couple of others, but hey, Dallas simply trumps them.)

Four tv shows I love:

DALLAS COWBOYS FOOTBALL
HOUSE
BOSTON LEGAL
THE APPRENTICE

Four places I've vacationed:

Washington D.C
New Orleans
Colorado
UK

Four of my favorite dishes:

Sour cream chicken enchiladas
Jambalaya
Prime rib (or) ribeye steak
Bread pudding with lemon sauce and creme fraiche with brandy

Four blogs I visit every day:

43 Folders
Pamie
Defamer
Nobody Knows Anything My first online journal habit, and a habit still.

Four places I would rather be right now:

In a cottage in the Lake District.
In a cottage on the coast of Cornwall.
This place on the Olympic Peninsula

And another on the Olympic Peninsula (yes I've been surfing the area):

(Check back later -- I may add links to the English cottages, too.)

Four bloggers I'm tagging:

The first four who email me and say, "Choose me!" And then I'll link to you!

Okay, development hell -- you're it!

What does drought look like?

2006-02-13T19:30:00.000-06:00

We went to Lake Benbrook today to look at the drought. What does drought look like?

There is no fishing at the marina ever, but now there is no need for a no fishing sign at the marina because there is no water to fish in:

There is no floating at the marina, because the boat dock, the marina-on-a-barge, and the boats have no water to float in:

There is no "keeping between the bouys" when you boat out of the inlet/marina and enter the main lake, because there is no water to boat in:

See the picnic bench? See the scenic view? It overlooks the lake. Except, this is where the boats pass through the inlet and into the main lake, and you see way out there where there is shallow water? Well, that's how far down the lake is right now:

That is what drought looks like. And now you know why people in North Texas hoped Katrina or one of her friends would hit the Texas coast and come up our way. Of course, we weren't wishing disaster on the coast. Just hoping for moisture here. For the farmers, the ranchers, the water supply. Our lakes are mostly manmade to provide water for the cities. It's a good plan and it has worked well for us, with occasional rationing. Things are getting grim, though.

Feast or famine. Flood or drought.

I guess that's just life on Planet Earth.

In the meantime, nothing profound here. Just drought.

Baghdad in Pink

2006-02-11T14:20:00.000-06:00

So, maybe you've noticed and maybe you haven't.

But I have a link to one the pinkest blogs on the net, My Iraqi Saga.

On Oct 1st, 2005 I got a letter in the mail. After 3 1/2 years out of the Army National Guard they called me back up. I had to report Oct. 30th. This is my journal from the day I reported. Hope you like it....

And fascinating, it is. I stumbled across it when I was surfing after first joining blogger/blogspot back in November 2005. I have a feeling if I were in a war zone, I too would sleep through it....

Abuse of "hooah," indeed!

Yes, More Wales (lots of pics)

2006-02-10T10:00:00.000-06:00

Just browsing through my pics from March 2005, and figured I'd post some more. And now that I think about it, I regret not paying more attention to the village names as we drove through them. But I mean, they were all IN WELSH. So just toss some double-Ls and odd letters in randomly and you're bound to come close, right?

This was the third B&B we stayed at that had a brand new loo -- with no curtains and a glass shower. Uh-huh. This one had a nice view of the front where the cars were parked, and the street beyond. Uh-huh. Still, it was a very nice place, and I don't really mind showering on my knees.

Imagine my surprise the first time we saw one of these (on a headstone in a small, old Scottish cemetery) and I asked someone what it was and they said it was a robin. I started to say, "They're nothing like the Robins back in Texas, ours are much bigg--" but stopped myself in time. Heh.

Wish this were a better pic, but he's a Welsh cowboy! I think they called him a cattle drover -- should have written that down. But hey, a cowboy is a cowboy is a cowboy. He resides in Llandovery and keeps watch over a hotel car park.

St. David's Cathedral -- off the beaten path, on the western coast of Wales. How does it manage to be rugged and delicate at the same time? I don't know. But it does, and it is.

I never get tired of lambs and sheep. That's because (or so I'm told) I've never had them loose in my garden, churning it into a muddy, stinky mess. Well, yes, this is very true. Which is why I can still adore them.

I guess it's time to stop before I turn into one of Those People with their boring slide shows of their vacations.

What? I already am? Well, I never!

Rays of Hope

2006-02-08T07:47:00.000-06:00

When I picked up the New York Times this morning I'm not sure what I was expecting to read. I know it wasn't good news, but good news is what I found.

Oh sure, the world is still full of terror and anger and horror and fear, but a few rays of hope are shining through.

Somehow, it ended up on page A10, not exactly headline news, but that's okay, I'll take my hope where I can find it:

Heather Wilson is calling for an investigation of the Bush Administration's wiretapping activities.

Well, of course lots of people are, but we're being warned by the White House and by certain Republican leaders that it would be "unwise at best and reckless at worst" to report on classified matters. But there's a climate shift in Washington D. C. these days, and Heather Wilson is one of the best indicators I've seen.

Please tell me why Heather Wilson should not be listened to, why her opinion should be considered unwise or reckless. It's not just that she's Chair of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence that oversees the National Security Administration.

Heather Wilson is a Rhodes Scholar. She's a former Air Force officer, and the first graduate of the Air Force Academy in Congress. She was an aide to the National Security Administration during the first President Bush's administration. Try and tell me she doesn't have the knowledge, the experience and the background to voice her concerns.

Finally, she's a Republican.

These concerns are not broken down in party lines, and anyone who tries to claim that the Democrats don't remember 9/11 or live in a fantasy world because they've been kicking up dust over this issue had better start tossing some of their favorite Republicans into that same category. Arlen Specter has questioned the legality of the wiretaps, and four of the ten Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced concerns about the wiretapping at during Attorney General Gonzales's testimony yesterday.

I call that hope for the Constitution, and for Americans.

If the current administration really needs to circumvent our current laws, let them go to Congress and fight for it. The way Congress rubber-stamped the initial Patriot Act proves it wouldn't have been hard to do. If it's harder today than it would have been before, well, they have only their own actions to blame.

But let's flip the lens, and look on the same page and find another story that brings me hope. Check out this headline:

86 Evangelical Leaders Join to Fight Global Warming

One of the signers is megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of the ubiquitous The Purpose-Driven Life. His best sellers have broken out of the Evangelical ranks and into mainstream churches, almost as mandatory as a Bible, or so it seems.

Add the voices/signatures of 39 evangelical colleges and other leaders, and you have some pretty heavy-hitters, despite the fact that they they are bucking opposition among their colleagues to do this. According to the NYTimes: The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges."

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

And finally, I read and savored every word of the front page story of the funeral of Coretta Scott King. Each of the attending Presidents were quoted.

According to the article President Bush's words were eloquent. "Americans knew her husband only as a young man. We knew Mrs. King in all the seasons of her life. And there was beauty and dignity in every season. By going forward with a strong and forgiving heart, Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband's legacy, she built her own. Having loved a leader, she became a leader."

President Carter "mentioned the difficulties that Mrs. King and her husband, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., endured as they became the target of secret government wiretapping." (Never underestimate that soft-spoken Southern gentleman, ahem.)

President Clinton spoke without notes, from the heart, "I don't want us to forget that there's a woman in there. Not a symbol, a real woman who lived and breathed and got angry and got hurt and had dreams and disappointments."

And the first President Bush represented those of us among the "frozen chosen*" well by bringing a bit of laughter to the solemn proceedings, bringing cheers when he announced, "It may be your lucky day, I've lost a page."

But it was when I reached Maya Angelou's words that I saw the example Mrs. King set that resonates with the hope I've felt simmering as I've been reading this morning. "She prayed nightly for Palestine and equally for Israel."

If we can look beyond labels like Republican, Democrat, Evangelical in a search for truth. If we can listen to each other's voices instead of drawing lines in the sand and enforcing them with barbed-wire prejudice. If we can bring our best minds and efforts to the struggle to protect this land, this democracy, without destroying it in the process, surely there is hope.

* Episcopalians

Last Prince of Wales, Redux

2006-02-06T15:12:00.000-06:00

On December 8 I wrote about a day almost a year ago when I climbed a muddy Welsh hill to see a castle ruin and a romantic and other-worldly statue of the last Welsh Prince of Wales.

The photograph in question, one I was very proud of.

See for yourself.

However, I wasn't alone on that hilltop. The resident storm chaser eventually decided to follow me up and snap a few shots of his own, and damn if he didn't see a better angle than I did.

Sigh.

I hate when that happens.

(I'm not the one who slipped on the way down and ended up with a muddy bum, though, so there.)

Me Talking to Myself

2006-02-02T10:55:00.000-06:00

As many of my close writer friends know, I have a habit of calling to complain that I have a plotting problem or a problem with a scene and somehow managing to rattle off a long monologue of what isn't working, why it isn't working, and what I've tried to do to fix it -- and suddenly having a brainstorm and realizing I know what to do, and thanking them profusely, and hanging up and running back to my writing.

Without them having ever said much more than, "Uh-huh," a few times.

I've even started writing a long email to send off to somebody along the same lines, and by the time I get to the end, I no longer need to write it.

Well, I'm not alone.

merlin writing to himself

Try it. It may help you, too.

BBC Radio Scotland Gets In On the Game

2006-01-31T10:33:00.000-06:00

So I'm listening to Radio Scotland and I hear them promoting Write Here, Right Now.

How about spending the most boring month in the year, February, doing something crazy and creative?

Why not write a novel?
Radio Scotland challenges you to take part in 'Write Here, Right Now'. You just commit to writing 1000 words a day for 28 days. We're talking potential, not a polished novel, with that all-important deadline hurtling towards you.

Check it out -- weekly newsletter, etc. I thought I understood them to say that there will also be a radio show that talks about it daily but don't find mention of that on the website. So maybe I just made that up. That's what writers do, you know. Make things up. And sometimes even get what's made up and what's not confused in their feeble little minds, or maybe it doesn't matter, I forget which excuse James Frey used.

Less demanding than nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, which requires 50,000 words in November, yet more demanding than NILTOY, Novel In Less Than One Year, though there's no reason you couldn't do both.

And don't forget that Louise Doughty has started a weekly column in the Telegraph encouraging wannabe novelists to just do it. Write a novel this year.

And don't forget to run your title through the Lulu Title Scorer to see, well, how it scores. I wouldn't change a great title just because Lulu doesn't give it a high score. On the other hand, Margaret Mitchell thought Tomorrow Is Another Day was a great title. Luckily her editors changed her mind.

Go on. Write up a storm.

More storyboarding

2006-01-27T14:43:00.000-06:00

Back before I was blogging, Diane and I talked about storyboard/outlining software, and how she had decided to go retro with index cards. She posted about it with a pic of her corkboard, and she tossed in a little 8-sequence USC story model, a little rock-throwing, a little MacBeth.

I'm glad Diane got her MFA at USC. I've learned some good stuff from her because of it.

And lucky for me, she doesn't care about football so won't mind if I suddenly segue into the funny thing that showed up in email a couple of days ago. You've probably already seen it, but if not...

Cheerleading, tumbling lessons and camps since age 3: $30,000

Annual cost of attending USC: $ 50,000

Annual cost for staying just the right shade of blonde: $10,000

Cheering when the other team scores: Priceless

Hook 'em, baby.

Hoist One High

2006-01-25T19:57:00.000-06:00

It's a night for fine single malt, for haggis, for tartan, for kilt.

Tragic Fragment

All devil as I am-a damned wretch,
A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;
And with sincere but unavailing sighs
I view the helpless children of distress:
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor
Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction,
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. -

Robert Burns
Scotland's Son

Sisyphean Blackmail

2006-01-23T09:03:00.000-06:00

As I've explained before, max first used the Greek boulder-rolling guy to describe me and my relationship with my desk.

Once the image got in my head, it stuck. Sisyphus, that's me. Which also describes me in other ways, because I am a big sissy and I do fuss a lot.

My desk, my office, need to be excavated. And so I am blackmailing myself.

It all started when toni sent me an email with the subject header "separated at birth?" and told me that Jenny Crusie and I were the very same person, and it was really scary, and sent me a link to her January 1, 2006 blog entry. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to link to that entry alone so am sending you to her archive. Scroll to the very bottom, the very first post, and you will see her office. Her desk.

Go on. I'll wait for you.

click and scroll down, way down, don't stop near the bottom when you see an office which isn't hers, go to the very bottom, okay?

Now, understand this. I'm not saying my office is neater than hers. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying, I found myself looking long and hard trying to make up my mind whether it was or not ....

I have decided that the way to make myself dig in is to take a picture of it this morning. And every Monday morning. And the first Monday that it doesn't look better than it did the previous week?

I am posting today's "before" picture on the web for all to see.

Improvement each week. That should be doable.

Excuse me.

I have to go take a picture.

And just so you'll have something pretty to look at today:

Abby, the Australian Cattle Dog, a.k.a. Blue Heeler

p.s. You know, I would challenge everybody to post a picture of their office to their blog because I think that would be really interesting to see, but since I'm not posting my own yet, I guess that wouldn't be fair, would it?

Cat-Saving with the Moleskine

2006-01-19T19:52:00.000-06:00

Where to begin?

Okay, first, what (some of you may be asking) is a Moleskine?

I mentioned it here (and Cynthia told me about the storyboard version in comments). Digger27 found me and linked to me because I wrote about Moleskines, and has more about them on his site. But hey, there are Moleskine sites all over the net. My fave is ninthwavedesigns -- check out the art. Makes me feel almost guilty for filling mine with illegible scrawls and post-its.

Which brings me to the subject at hand!

I figured out a way to use the storyboard version here, and there was more discussion of refinements in comments....

And the idea of having a "real" board at home and the moleskine with me is the one that I like best.

And so, here is the revelation, the epiphany, if you will.

I always have ideas in my head. I've got stories that have been in my head for years, with certain details, certain elements. Not fully fleshed out by any means, but a few elements that intrigue. Perhaps a plot twist that pleases me. All waiting for the day when I decide "this one is next" and pick them up and run with them.

And what I figured out is, with two "cards" per page (Post-its, in this case) there is room for four sets.

So what the Moleskine is for me right now is a brainstormer. I have one particular idea that is on the front burner, but I also have room for those others that are simmering, so I can sprinkle in some spice or add a little extra salt if the mood strikes or a brainstorm hits. Instead of keeping it in my head, I have a system to actually -- wait for it -- WRITE STUFF DOWN.

I'll give you a moment.

Okay, recovered? Good.

I have two sets in there for the two projects that are on my plate right now. I'm colorcoding, using different colors for each story for the majority of the cards, and the important beats in a contrasting color. If I can jot a few words down in the part of the plot where I think it will occur, and move the Post-it as needed.

In case you're wondering, the main reason why index cards (or in my case here, Post-its) are better than just writing stuff down in text format on a page or computer screen is because of that flow. Because if you write a list of things that might happen, or worse, excessive notes on what might happen, as soon as it hits the page in a certain order your brain tries to keep it in that order. You suddenly have a story, whether it's the best one or not.

Using cards, it's painless to say, "What if she kills him in chapter one instead of chapter twelve?" And shuffle the cards and look at all the new possibilities. The visual and tactical aspect are liberating.

Plus, it's all highly portable. Have an idea, a phrase, a line of dialogue, a gesture that you want to remember later? Jot it on a card (or Post-it) and keep going.

Right now I'm using yellow Post-its to mark the two different story sets, but will use the little post-it tags when I, um, find my little Post-it tags. They're around here somewhere, I know they are, damn it.

With this story set, I'm using pink Post-its, and blue for the major beats. On this you see the opening -- Opening image/scene in blue, then Scene, Scene, then the Catalyst scene, again in blue. Then several pages of pink until you get to the first turning point, etc.

So maybe it's not earthshattering, but I really like this use of the Moleskine.

And just in case you need it: (Save the Cat )

Cat! Saving!

2006-01-17T17:36:00.000-06:00

(I need to start naming all these STC entries in a way that makes it clear for people who are following this, hmm.)

Oh, sorry, talking to myself. Again. (Did you know again is an adverb? I looked it up. How odd. Well, not odd when you think about it. I mean, when you think about it, again modifies the verb....)

Ahem.

Today I present to you what ronniebeegood did with scene cards and Blake Snyder's (Save the Cat ) methodology.

He says: "Here's a couple of pics complete with ugly masking tape. One shows the whole board:

"And the other shows a closeup of a segment:

(Click on the pictures for more detail.)
"It's a foldable scientific project board ($3.99) from Target and the index cards are upside down with the title at the bottom to get the accordion effect. There's a +/- on the bottom along with a >< conflict note just above the scene title. The colored mark at the bottom left of some of the cards indicates action in India vs. U.S. I want to do more color coding to show the interweaving better, but haven't done it yet. Still more work!"

Okay, that officially blows me off the map! I'm impressed!

(And I'll get back to the moleskine idea soon -- which could be used in conjunction with something more involved, like this.)

In honor of the Golden Globes....

2006-01-16T19:48:00.000-06:00

... and Hugh Laurie's win (yay, HOUSE!).

I will send you to Daily Show writer Rob Kutner's and Sheryl Zohn's fun recounting of the Emmys (which Hugh Laurie did not win, boo-hiss!).

But this is clearly just an opportunity to relay a nice Hugh Laurie story from said recounting:

Eventually, Lewis Black also succumbed to the siren song of the Emmy bar, and Sheryl ended up sitting next to the aforementioned Gloria (a.k.a. J.R.’s Mom), who couldn’t keep her eyes off the most brightly shining star in the entire theater: the guy who played Bertie Wooster (a.k.a. Hugh Laurie from Fox’s “House.”) As luck would have it, Laurie walked up the aisle next to Gloria. Not wanting to miss a chance, Sheryl popped up, grabbed the actor’s hand, and exclaimed, “We’re with the Daily Show! And this is a Daily Show writer’s Mom!” Laurie graciously shook Gloria’s hand and congratulated her. Surely Jeeves would have been proud.

A few minutes later, Alan Alda walked up the very same aisle.

Sheryl: “Look, there’s Alan Alda.”

Gloria: “Oh, you’re right.”

Sheryl: “Want to meet him?”

Gloria: “Eh.”

Fans can be so fickle.

Now go read more fun backstage Emmy stuff (via Jacob Sager Weinstein's yankeefog).

(Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana just won for Brokeback Mountain! Woo-hoo! I think I'll go back to the telecast.)

Chow, y'all.

Curses, tagged again!

2006-01-14T13:23:00.000-06:00

So I seem to have been tagged by somebody who is one day past her sell date, and this seems to be a meme that is aimed at screenwriters. Hmmm.

Okay, I'm game.

1 early film-related memory:

The seat at the Texas Theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was hiding right before he was arrested. They painted it black, and it stayed black until the theater closed as a first-run venue. Not sure what happened after that.

2 favorite movie lines:

"I'm villifying you for God's sake - pay attention!"
The Lion in Winter

"I think if God is dead he laughed himself to death."
They Might Be Giants

3 jobs you'd do if you couldn't work in the business:

Feed baby animals at the San Diego Zoo

Sell firewood in Rocky Mountain National Park

Be a potter in Tintagel, Cornwall

4 jobs you have actually held outside the industry:

Novelist

Videographer

Teacher

Secretary

3 (current) book authors I like:

JK Rowling

PD James

Terry Pratchett

2 movies you'd like to remake or properties you'd like to adapt:

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

1 Screenwriter you think is underrated:

James Goldman

3 people I'm tagging to answer this meme next:

max

gwenda

jette

Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
This is on a wonderful 3-mile trail, where you climb in altitude and see three different lakes. I was out of shape but handled the climb pretty well. Beautiful and well worth the effort. What I didn't expect was that I hadn't yet acclimated to the altitude and before we could get back down to our campsite, I was, um, losing my lunch. And dying from headache. And in no condition to actually camp. And we ended up going into town to stay. Humiliating failure. Next time I will still hike, but will not hike our first day in the mountains. Live and learn.

Sisyphean Pooks

2006-01-13T14:54:00.000-06:00

Once when I mentioned I was trying to clean off my desk, max said she had this image of me like "that Greek guy" who kept rolling the boulder up the mountain, only to have it roll down and start all over again, only with me it was my desk.

Oh, if only she knew.

It's not just my desk, it's my LIFE.

Okay, so in a Sisyphean (my word of the week) effort to once again try to get some semblance of control over my life I bought my new cute little Franklin planner and have been using it since Jan 1, and it works. It works really well.

Like most things, however, it only works as well I do.

Meaning, I have to remember to write things down.

WHICH I HAVE BEEN DOING!

Okay? I have. And I've been using it, and writing things down, and already I'm feeling just a leeeetle bit more like I'm gaining a leeeetle bit of control.

I woke up this morning and there in my planner I saw: 11:30 Lunch with C&P.

Yay! Lunch day!

You may remember this, because I mentioned it recently when I said:

I have three wrapped Christmas presents on the table beside me -- two to go to friends, and one from a friend to me. We decided to wait until we could all be together to open them. And then they opened theirs anyway. And They Know Who They Are. I'm not complaining, of course. (ahem)

I'm really proud of how well I've been keeping up with stuff this month.

So I get to lunch and there C sits and I have two books with me. I put them on the table and she says, "Oh good, you remembered!"

I stare at her. Oh. Wait, I was supposed to bring her a book.

Shit.

"No I didn't, oh no, I'm so sorry -- which book was I supposed to bring you?"

She told me, and I rolled my eyes because I am an idiot, but I promise I'll get it to her.

And then P shows up and in her hand is a pretty red package with fluffy green bow on it.

Oh my freaking gawd.

I showed up for lunch without the presents. The presents that are the reason for the lunch.

My little planner really does work, people. But it only works as well as the operator, and in this case the operator needs to learn to write down the details, damn it.

Oh, and one of the books I had with me today, that just came in the mail and I picked it up and took it with me to lunch because I wanted to glance through it if I happened to be there first?

The "how to get control of your life and your stuff" book.
I'll let you know if it helps.

(sigh)

Books, movies, music, etc.

2006-01-13T10:10:00.000-06:00

This is for my own benefit more than anything, but (I can't believe this) I've started a second blog, guilty of reading, just for keeping track of what I see and hear this year.

It's over there, in the sidebar.

That's all.

Ugly Baby Pic!

2006-01-12T16:53:00.000-06:00

Thinking about my ugly baby sent me back into the closet (gack) to dig it out.

Awww....

Isn't that the sweetest thing you ever saw?

Actually it's conjoined twins -- two drafts kind of shuffled together. I'm not sure how they got shuffled. But short of going through it page by page, I couldn't break one draft out. (I have four different first pages.)

And I cleaned my desk off just for you!

(Well, a little spot of it.)

House Rocks!

2006-01-10T21:08:00.000-06:00

Okay, I love love love HOUSE .

The first time I saw it -- or rather, saw the last ten minutes of it, I had the oddest feeling that I'd seen that actor before, but couldn't place him. So while I was waiting for the show to end, I idly surfed to the IMDB and --

"Sam -- it's BERTIE WOOSTER!"

Goofy, lovable, not-too-bright Bertie Wooster.

ENGLISH Bertie Wooster.

Had somehow morphed into --

Moody, brilliant, snarly Dr. Gregory House.

Decidedly abrasive AMERICAN House.

Wow.

I mean, to truly understand this, you have to have seen him. You have to have seen Hugh Laurie as both Bertie Wooster and as House to truly understand the magnitude of this feat.

My goodness.

But that's not what brought me to the keyboard tonight.

What brought me to the keyboard tonight was:

Written by Doris Egan.

Doris, one of our original GEnie crew.

Tonight's HOUSE was terrific.

And I can officially say Doris rocks!

The Catch

2006-01-10T10:06:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I linked to British author Louise Doughty's new enterprise, a weekly column in the Telegraph encouraging would-be writers to write a novel this year, in which she said:

But there is a catch. You have to write. This is something that would-be writers sometimes appear not to have grasped.

Ah yes, there's the rub!

YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

But Doughty must run in different circles (well, obviously she does) than I do, because in my experience published writers struggle just as much with that "catch" as would-be. Oh, sure, there are some who put the seats of their pants to the seats of their chairs and write like clockwork, daily, X number of hours. But there are oh so many for whom writing is the thing they finally do when A) they've exhausted all other ways to avoid it, or B) their deadlines are breathing fire down their necks. ::sheepishly raising hand::

It's not enough to just dream about it, think about it, talk about it, read and post on websites about it, attend conferences and join organizations.

At some point you must actually write.

Okay, moving on:

Like many novelists, I often give talks at festivals and a common question is, 'How did you get your first novel published?'

It's a perfectly valid question but I often suspect the motivation behind it. What was your trick? is what they mean. Tell me your trick, because when I know it, I will be published too.

Oh yes indeed. And this comes in many forms. One friend described her own experience as walking into the first local Romance Writers of America chapter meeting after word got out that she'd sold her book, and it was as if a neon sign flashed over her head:

I KNOW THE SECRET.

Sometimes the reactions are quite openly resentful. Because clearly, you not only know the secret -- you aren't sharing it.

And the implication is clear, as Doughty concludes:

The honest answer, I'm afraid, is, "I wrote a good book. And if you want to be a published writer, you will have to write one too."

Ouch.

And honestly? Say that? And you will be a bitch.

Not only will you be a bitch, but there will also be plenty of people around who have read your book (or something you wrote three years ago) and will Know For a Fact It Isn't Good. How on EARTH did you get that published? Who did you blackmail, screw or bribe?!?

Oh wait, they won't say that directly to you; they'll say it to each other.

You know this is true. You know this is true the same way I know this is true.

Because we have thought (and possibly said) the exact same thing as we threw down books in disgust.

Okay, so here are some hard cold facts. Accept them, and life will be easier.

You are going to see books get published that you know are Bad Books, and they really are Bad Books, and you are going to eat your soul from the inside out wondering why, why, why? when my book didn't sell?

You are going to see books get published that you know are Bad Books, and you are going to be wrong, because the green-eyed monster has taken over your judgment.

You are going to see wonderful books get published and you're going to be convinced that your writing is horrible and pedestrian and you are wasting your time and embarrassing yourself and anyone who loves you by writing books.

If you are part of a writing community of any sort, somebody you loathe is going to sell a book before you do, and it's going to make you seethe and burn.

Somebody you love is going to sell a book before you do, and it's going to hurt and you may even seethe and burn and you're going to feel guilty, and resentful, and did I mention guilty--

Even while you are ecstatically happy for them.

And all of this is normal.

Accept it. It will happen.

And then go back and write.

Because if you're a writer, you can't not write. The time you spend not writing will nag at you and torment you and you will feel more like a failure than when you do write and get a rejection letter.

Write. Keep writing. Write for the joy. For the power. For the sizzle. For the laughter. For the agony. For the impotence. For the rage.

Keep writing.

And the day will come, I know it will, when you get to be the one suffering the torment of the damned as you wait for revision letters, for cover art, for reviews, and for people to look at you funny out of the corner of their eyes because they're sure you're holding out on them and that you could share your agent, your editor, your secret --

But that's okay, because here's the catch.

You'll be the one who sold the book.

A good book.

One somebody paid money for, and published, and it will be yours.

Go write.

Go Forth and Write

2006-01-09T14:34:00.000-06:00

Something's in the air.

First, via Chaos Theory I stumbled across a new site that looks pretty interesting for novelists who want a little company and incentive on their journey, NILTOY, Novel In Less Than One Year.

From their own description:

Welcome to NILTOY - Novel in Less Than One Year! We're so glad you stopped by! Step inside and discover how anyone can complete a 100,000-word novel in only ten months. Follow the links to the left for resources and links for writers, articles, the Forum and more.

While we owe our original concept to the great folks at NaNoWriMo, we are not associated with them in any way. NILTOY is a separate entity devoted to average people who want to write, but have difficulty finding (or making) the time to write. We are not about speed, but rather endurance. Make the commitment to write 500 words every day, create the habit, and you, too, can complete a 100,000-word novel in less than one year.

Pretty cool. They have a blog, a forum and whatnot. Check 'em out, if that intrigues you.

Then as I was reading Gwenda yesterday I saw another reference to "novel in a year," and thought, word of NILTOY is getting around.

But it wasn't.

It was something different. It seems that British author Louise Doughty has started a weekly column in the Telegraph encouraging wannabe novelists to just do it.

Write a novel this year.

And she, too, will have a message board for people to post and share. Also, she's giving assignments each week. Looks like fun.

So yes, something's in the air, the planets are aligning, and if you keep thinking about writing a novel and talking about writing a novel and planning to write a novel but haven't managed to do it?

Looks like now's the time, eh? The universe (or at least the internet) is trying to help you along.

Go for it.

HL,WT (second in a series)*

2006-01-07T20:17:00.000-06:00

Another day, another Starbucks.

I had my new Christmas camera and was trying it out. Just snapped off some shots, nothing too good.

Snap-snap-snap. Is this thing on?

A stool with a view:

Another view -- and wouldn't you think somebody would have messed with those letters by now?

Finally, another shot through the window: cute dog.

Hey. I never claimed it would be exciting.

*Have Laptop, Will Travel

Scattershooting

2006-01-06T22:16:00.000-06:00

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Duane Thomas....

The Book of Daniel is way over-the-top unbelievable -- can there be that many dysfunctional people in one city block, much less one family? -- but I really liked it. Check it out.

Does balsamic vinegar go bad? I don't know how old it is .... I decided it might smell a tad wonky, so I didn't risk it. Damn it.

Two Dallas Morning News headlines that make me happy tonight:
Parcells staying with Cowboys and DeLay facing revolt in GOP. (Free registration, no spam, but you can probably find the stories elsewhere if you're interested.) Add that to a Texas: 2005 National Champions and we have good times.

Yesterday I linked to 2"x3" Post-Its for illustrative purposes, never thinking I'd actually end up ordering them online. But I spent way too long staring at an entire wall of the things at Office Depot today before I finally accepted that no, they do not have that size.

The NFL playoffs start tomorrow and my burnt-orange glow is still warming me so graciously that I haven't even stirred up my usual ability to root against the Redskins....

Oh and I've been meaning to ask, what's with Matthew McConaughey doing a backward "hook 'em" the other night? Is this the way the cool kids do it now, or was he, um, not entirely on planet Earth, shall we say?

I have three wrapped Christmas presents on the table beside me -- two to go to friends, and one from a friend to me. We decided to wait until we could all be together to open them. And then they opened theirs anyway. And They Know Who They Are. I'm not complaining, of course. (ahem)

AncyKate called me and I couldn't talk to her (again) and she was supposed to email her phone number to me and she hasn't done that yet. (ahem)

Oh, and um, I just remembered, I have a script I was supposed to read for somebody back in, oh dear, was it really November? I still haven't read it... um. Yeah. I need to do something about that, don't I. (I wonder if the writer has put a hit out on me yet.)

Today was a good day. I managed to get a cover letter and other presentation materials together to finally FedEx to LA only a few days later than I said I would. I worked on loglines/premises and made progress. None of it looks like a lot on paper, but it's the first work I've done in 2006, and I'm finally shifting back into gear, so, yay me! It also feels good that I did a significant portion of it while eating chips and nachos at a local TexMex joint. Love those working lunches!

And finally, it has been bunches of fun doing holidailies, even worth starting a blog just so I can do it! Thanks for all your hard work, Jette and Chip and "distinguished readers panel." I've met some new people, discovered new blogs, and learned more about people I've known awhile.

It's been good.

Now go whistle "We Three Kings" and have a few epiphanies!

Still Saving the Cat

2006-01-05T17:34:00.000-06:00

So Blake Snyder (Save the Cat ) is feeding my tendency to fiddle-fart around in the guise of "writing" by claiming that the time you spend in Office Depot checking out office supplies to help you outline your script (or novel) is part of the writing process.

Now this should be easy, right? Index cards? (Or if you prefer, spiral.) Check. Grab a rubber band and you're set.

Except you really need to be able to spread them out, look at the story flow, rearrange at will. And that might mean you'd have to find a clear table or pick up the books off the floor, which is when you go to the trusty cork board. (By the way, I just found this nifty thing and boy do I feel out of it -- is it covered with Post-it (tm) stickum, or what?)

So, okay, cards and a board, there ya go, you're ready, right?

Um, no. Because one, that's too easy. And two, I have no wall space in my office. Too many bookcases. Besides, I don't even write in my office. Laptop, comfy chair, wifi -- why would I stay in the office?

Okay, so this broadens the search, and this is what led me to the writer/reader crack also known as Levenger. And can you believe this?

Bleachers! For index cards! Have you seen anything this cute ever?

Two probs. One, these bleachers have six rows, and Snyder (see above) recommends four rows. Two, I'd have to clean off my desk, if I were even sitting at my desk, but we've already been there.

But they are so cute...!

Next? More Levenger-crack. A full-size folio.

Veddy-veddy pretty. Leather, always a plus. But expensive. Yikes!

This is portable which is what I'm really looking for. But only three rows, and doesn't really hold enough cards. And expensive, sigh.

At this point, I'm having too much fun, and need to back up and remind myself what I'm looking for. And since I've done the scene-cards-in-rubberband way, and scene-cards-on-cork-board way, and am looking for a new way... what is it I really want? Okay, something portable. Something I can stash in my bag and take with me. Although honestly I'm not sure why. But it seems right. And this time that's what I'm looking for. Well, look at it this way. Laptop=portable. So I'm thinking to keep everything portable. (Sorry, thinking out loud for a minute there.)

And then I posted about the Moleskine and Cynthia clued me in about the new storyboard Moleskine and --

I ordered it.

This has potential. It's not perfect, but its imperfections are different from the others. It's not that expensive. It's portable. However, you can't use index cards with it, and you lose the portability of index cards unless --

You use 2"x3" Post-Its!

Of course there are no rows. Maybe you can get the "rhythm" going in your head, something like, first eight pages -- Act One. Second eight pages, etc. And use a different color for the last scene card on each "row."

Except -- look what I just did. I could have done this with any moleskine -- any small notebook, for that matter.

Sigh.

This fiddle-farting-before-outlining is HARD WORK.

I haven't come to any conclusions. Using small Post-Its I could actually use any old folio....

I don't know. I have the Moleskine and it's really kind of cool, and I think I'll fool around with this for a while.

I wonder if the goal of this entire exercise is to make me so tired of trying to figure out a "system" that I just start writing the script out of desperation....

Oh yeah, once I get permission, I'll show you what somebody else did with the Snyder system, index cards and a project board!

---------
In related news, I finally found last year's Moleskin and am going to start up the list mentioned in the post I linked to near the beginning of this entry. And I did finish listening to Freddy and Fredericka so that will be my first entry for 2006. Whew!

Paint it Orange

2006-01-05T00:10:00.000-06:00

The Tower is orange tonight.

Hook 'em, baby.

Hook 'em.

--------------------------

I've been cruising the holidailies drag and reading all the other blog entries about the Game, the Team, the Vince.

And I'm telling you, Mel must have been in our living room last night, because she's written everything we were saying -- Keith Jackson, the band, the bad production, everything.

"Act like ya been here before, son."

2006-01-04T09:51:00.000-06:00

I've heard it said about Emmitt Smith, or maybe Tony Dorsett -- I don't know, I think I've heard it about several players. Maybe it's apocryphal or maybe it's something that has happened numerous times. But supposedly after the hot young running back had scored his first college touchdown and hotdogged in the end zone his grizzled old coach snarled at him, "Act like ya been here before, son."

That's some good advice, there. It works in football. It works in Hollywood. It works in life. Whether you've just scored your first touchdown, your first meeting at William Morris or your first fancy restaurant meal.

Looking at that picture .... well, obviously Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart have been here before. It's the Rose Bowl. And they've won a couple of national championships. They look almost bored with the whole thing.

And then there's Vince Young -- what a tourist. Look at those Mickey Mouse hands, I mean, really. And yet, that casual leaning on his coach's shoulder ... and after all, he has been here before. Last year. When Texas beat Michigan at the Rose Bowl.

Last year a friend from Michigan bet me that Michigan would trounce Texas.

What did I win?

Meet Vincetta:

She loves living in Texas!

And she's head-over-heels that Texas is back in the Rose Bowl this year!

This year I know WAY too many Trojans to make bets. This year, it's all about bragging rights.

Hmmm.

Texas.

Bragging.

I think we can handle it.

After all, we're undefeated at the Rose Bowl.

We've been here before.

Fresh Start

2006-01-03T15:55:00.000-06:00

When I started this endeavor back on November 29, I thought I knew what it was going to be.

I was going to use the "Current Script Status" on the right to keep me honest, to (if I'm honest) even shame me into writing through the holidays.

I knew what the next script was going to be.

I had it outlined, and had even written a bit on it.

Things changed.

And instead of writing, the holidays were spent not writing.

Except for here. Here, I've been writing. (Rambling, more like it.) This was meant to prime the pump, and instead, it became the flow. That's not a bad thing. Oh, of course it probably is if you're reading this -- or if you started reading this and lost interest because it's so boring, and for that, sorry.

But it isn't a bad thing for me. For me the daily discipline has been good, and with the exception of Christmas Eve, I haven't missed a day.

Today is my first work day of 2006, and I'm back at ye olde drawing board, starting from scratch, coming up with ideas for a new project. And that feels good.

Will keeping a blog prime the pump once I'm actually writing? Possibly not. I don't know yet.

I'll tell you what really primes the pump for me, but if you're a writer, you already know this.

Writing well. Writing something that jazzes me -- not just pages, but a twist of plot, a twist of character, a twist of words. When that happens, the fizzy-flow spills over into my entire day no matter what nonsense the day throws at me. When it doesn't happen, I'm just flat water, no sparkle.

For some people there's a tendency to let a blog or journal be the jazz, the twist, the sparkle. It is their writing. It's a new form and they've made it something worth reading. For me, it's something on the side, not really my form.

But I'm glad to be able to dabble in it.

And now ... to a fresh blank page waiting for adjectives and verbs and nouns and sleight of hand.

It's time to stop waiting for The Idea and track it down with a loaded gun.

Ugly Babies

2006-01-02T16:57:00.000-06:00

The first book I wrote.

It's bad. So very bad. I used adverbs in sets of three. (I liked the rhythm of them, what can I say?) The characters were one-dimensional. The story was hackneyed.

It was bad.

And yet, there is a basic core there, a basic story idea, which is actually kind of cool. And in fact several people suggested I rewrite it once I had a better handle on, um, how to write.

Last year I was clearing out a closet and found an old box. I pulled the thing out, blew the dust off of it, and opened it.

Oh my gawd.

It was the bad book.

And I thought, okay, enough time has passed, maybe I should just peek in and see what it's really like....

I gasped in horror and laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks and sometimes hid my eyes -- I can't believe I let people read this!

And damn if I don't love every ugly, stupid, hackneyed page of it.

It's ugly, but it's my baby, and forever and ever will be my baby, and I love it in a way that is unholy.

Not satisfied to keep and protect my own ugly babies, I tend to inherit those of the rest of the family. I've got some of the ugliest pieces of old cheap porcelain you can imagine. Tacky stuff. But this dish was my Nana's, and that teacup was ... I forget who it belonged to but it must have been somebody important, right?

And that angel over there was my grandmother's friend's and she named it after her dead husband and how can you get rid of an angel named after somebody dead's dead husband?

And then there's the art.

My great-grandmother painted these poppies over a hundred years ago. Then my grandmother came along and "cleaned" them with linseed oil, which darkened them AND collected dust and nicotine.... well, what am I going to do? Nobody else will have it, and it was painted by my great-grandmother, did I mention that? It's so dark you can hardly tell what it is, but it's round, did you notice? A round picture! Now that's kinda cool and it has a very old frame....

Yeah. I know.

She painted this one, too. It's hard to tell in these photos (and how do you not have a flash on them?) but you can actually see drips of linseed crud on it. This one isn't as dark, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing. I mean with this one, you can actually see the details, and no offense to my great-grandmother but ... well, it really does have a gorgeous frame, doesn't it?

You know, the more I think about it, maybe my grandmother didn't smear that linseed oil on it by mistake. Ya think?

Now this last one, it isn't that ugly. It was painted by my grandfather. And while it's not going to make the guys on Antiques Roadshow have palpitations (or at least, not good palpitations) it's really kind of nice in a gentleman's smoking room kind of way.

In fact, there are other family members who would like to have it -- but I have conditions.

They have to take all the ugly stuff with it. AND hang it on the wall/put it out on display. In other words, they have to love those ugly babies the way I have.

But not my book.

This ugly baby is mine.

Separated at birth or secret son?

2006-01-01T18:09:00.000-06:00

I have to assume people who pay more attention to Eagle football than I generally do must have already discussed this at length, so somebody please clue me in.

Does Mike McMahon look like Dan Marino or what?

01-01-06

2006-01-01T13:38:00.000-06:00

I did it!

I wrote the first check of the year, and didn't even get it wrong.

I bought a bag of dried blackeyed peas and they're now simmering on the stove.

You do know that there are tricks to getting good luck from blackeyed peas, don't you?

First of all, my Grannymamma told me that you must cut the first pea in half with your fork before eating it, and you will then cut your troubles in half for the new year.

Second of all, I read that you get one day of luck for each pea you eat, which is why most people run out of luck sometime in mid-March.

Third of all, if you eat greens with them, you'll get money, lots of money in the new year. I'm all about money.

So, I had to make the trip to the grocery store this morning to assure us a year of luck and money.

And after nary a drop of bubbly (or any kind of alcoholy) on New Year's Eve, I found myself buying a bottle of Korbel's at the grocery store today. It was cold. It was on sale. And something about including champagne in my first purchase of the year sounds like a nice omen.

It'll make a nice tipsy day, anyway. (When we rolled over into 2000 I drank a glass of bubbly each time another time zone hit the new century. Now THAT was a New Year's!)

Happy, happy. Have a good one.

New Years Eve, 2001

2005-12-31T22:02:00.000-06:00

Three weeks after my father's death, I was still making my way across Dallas to the Episcopal Church I'd attended the day he died. I couldn't explain that -- It was still tres strange. I was still fumbling my way through the service to a certain extent.

I just knew that it was helping me, so I kept going and I kept feeling the Grace I'd experienced that first strange Sunday.

Now, what I didn't yet know but was figuring out -- Episcopalians will celebrate no season before its time. So here I was in December, still waiting for the Christmas music that I knew my old Methodist Church would be singing. It was Advent, and Advent is its own season, thank you very much. Advent being a time for preparation, this new church was preparing ... was waiting for Christmas to arrive. (Waiting for the good music, too, if you ask me, and my opinion of that hasn't changed, damn it.)

Christmas Eve was a Sunday that year, and even Christmas Eve? Not much in the way of decorations, and no sign of "Angels We Have Heard On High," or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Announcements were made about Christmas Eve services that night, but I knew I wouldn't be going.

So imagine my surprise when I entered the church one week later -- New Year's Eve, as a matter of fact -- to find the church filled with greenery, poinsettias, candles, all the Christmas one could ever desire. And to suddenly have the pipe organ -- and trumpets!!! -- blast forth with "O Come All Ye Faithful."

The procession of choir and clergy began; the place was packed, and holy cow, this being the first Sunday after Christmas, it was the full-on Christmas treatment, even though it was (say what?) New Year's Eve.

And you know what? It was worth the wait.

The music, the decorations, the celebration of life -- I suddenly understood what we were "waiting" and "preparing" for. I was there alone, and knew that for the rest of my friends and family Christmas was but a memory, but for me it was here-and-now and I felt selfish delight in the shock of it.

And it didn't end there.

The final processional was a rafter-trembling "Joy to the World." I was seated near the back so was one of the first ones to leave -- and just as I approached the beautiful old gothic-arched doors, the ushers swung them open with wide grins.

I don't think there's any way to explain the magnitude of this event.

It was SNOWING.

Dallas, Texas. Yes, we sometimes get ice or sleet or freezing rain or even snow.

But this was SNOW-SNOW. The ground was already covered; the flakes were huge and swirling and showed no sign of quitting.

Behind me, pipe organ and trumpets still playing Christmas hymns and candles burning and the air smelling of incense and evergreen --

And in front of me, Currier and Ives.

It was pure Hollywood.

My first white Christmas.

And my very-favorite-ever New Year's Eve.

Merry New Year, to all, and to all a safe night....

See you in 2006!

His Royal Kinkiness

2005-12-30T17:29:00.000-06:00

God, I hope this man is the next governor of the Great State of Texas.

kinky

* Texas Monthly, The National Magazine of Texas, "The Kinkster as Her Royal Highness, July 2004"

---------

I love audible.com. I love listening to books while driving (which I spend much time doing) or while doing housework (which I spend rather less time doing). And I started listening to Freddy and Fredericka with the best of intentions. I found it amusing, and a nice distraction. However, "amusing" and "nice distraction" do not justify 25.5 hours of my listening life.

I haven't been listening as often as I used to, because I keep thinking, "Oh, yeah, it's that Freddy-book, maybe I won't listen right now." I considered giving it up as a lost cause, but every time I start listening again, I think, "Well, it's amusing enough, I'll keep listening...."

And so here I sit with 3 1/2 hours left to listen to -- after listening to 21, mind you -- and I'm about to hit the wall.

I'm about to say, "I don't give a flying fuck what happens here, I will run screaming into traffic if I have to hear any more of this book," and quit. I honestly can't figure out why I didn't quit sooner. It's not as if I've never quit reading a book I didn't like. I do it all the time. Life's too short.

So, has anybody here read it? Does something happen at the end that makes you go, "Wow! What a killer ending!"

Because an "amusing" ending is not worth the time I've spent on this already, much less another 3 1/2 hours.

Maybe I'm not up to listening to ANY book that is that long. Although I've never had trouble listening to any of the Harry Potters, and some of them have come close....

Winter Sunset

2005-12-28T22:52:00.000-06:00

The other thing about Sam....

I drove home from Office Depot with paper for my new printer. Tunnel-visioned. Just thinking about how fast it was going to print.

Pulled up in front of the house to see Sam in the front yard with a camera.

I looked to the west -- and saw what I'd been too busy "thinking" to notice.

Nice.

I'm not complaining.

2005-12-28T15:41:00.000-06:00

The one thing I know about Sam is that if something is at all technical, he will research it for-freaking-ever to make the very smartest choice.

And I'm not complaining about that.

This means if I ask for some sort of little speaker-doolies for my iPod so I can listen without headphones, and he asks, "What kind do you want?" I can say, "I don't know, that's your department," and end up with nice ones, not the cheap ones I would have bought myself. It means when we needed a new washer/dryer, I ended up with what were at the time the very best front loaders Maytag had to offer.

This is what I call delegating. I let him choose anything that I want to be top-of-the-line, because when he chooses, it will be.

So when I said, "I would really-really-really love to have a laser printer that prints only black ink because they are fast and crisp and superior and I never need color for anything," I knew I could sit back and leave the rest to him.

And I'm not complaining.

But.

This printer. It's HUGE. It weighs 45 freaking pounds. (I'm not sure I should have lifted it out of the box and carried it into my office, actually.)

And on my desk? It's .... REALLY HUGE.

I mean, on paper, 18" high and 17" wide and 15" deep may not seem all that big.

BUT IT IS.

Not that I'm complaining.

But, you see? It doesn't fit where the other printer fit. And I've spent the day in my office ("OFFICE!" squealed in Maynard G. Krebs falsetto) throwing stuff out, moving stuff around, clearing a path to the desk, clearing a space ON the desk....

Which means I've now got stacks of stuff in the hall, in the living room, waiting to be "handled" in some efficient way which does not include getting moved back onto my office floor or desk.... (Oy!)

And a mountain of clean clothes on the sofa waiting to be folded and dealt with, which I haven't been doing because I've spent the day moving crap around in and out of my office ("Office!").

And now that Sam is finally in there installing the printer and preparing it to take orders from my laptop without benefit of cables, I'm staring at stacks of stuff and piles of clothes and kind of wanting to curl up in a ball.

But I'm not complaining.

Because he loves me and he wants me to have something that works really well and I did say I wanted a fast printer and this one is fast, and did I say he loves me and bought this for me because he wants me to have something that works really well?

And I'm not complaining.

But next time he asks, "What kind do you want?" I'm going to damn sure have an answer and it will not be something that requires me to spend one day tearing my office apart and (apparently) another day putting it back together just to squeeze the "new something" in.

And the first person who points out that I need to just clean up my damn office is going to die.

Today I Killed The Fairy.

2005-12-27T15:36:00.001-06:00

First you have to understand the love-hate relationship I have with The Fairy.

There are pros and cons to it.

Pro: It's a beautiful shrubby rose with glossy green leaves and when it blooms, it is covered with beautiful tiny blooms.

Con: They are pink.

Pro: But they're beautiful.

Con: But it blooms once a year and then you're left with leaves.

Pro: But they are pretty and glossy green.

By the way. That is not a picture of my The Fairy. Mine is bigger and when it blooms it's solid pink. I do not lie. Solid pink with blooms. So honestly, what is my problem with it?

Con: IT HAS NO FRAGRANCE.

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet? Not The Fairy.

And another con: It has a stupid name. The Fairy. How awkward is that? "I'd like to buy a The Fairy." Bugger that.

So today as we raked out ten big black bags of leaves from our flowerbeds to put out by the curb for pickup, I decided to be ruthless and take the clippers to The Fairy because she was so overgrown and dense with thorns and stickers I couldn't get to the leaves.

Mind you, I've always been glad for an excuse to avoid any raking possible in years past, but today I felt a surge of something ... something mean.

And I decided to cut the damn The Fairy back if it killed it. Then I thought, hey, maybe it will! And I can put a nice smelly rose there! And I started hacking and cutting and raking and cutting and hacking until I was left with a very uneven bunch of sticks.

But deep down I'm afraid The Fairy will live to bloom and not smell another day.

In brighter news, we rescued a pair of hedgehogs from deep within The (evil) Fairy's thorny grasp:

By the way, do ten big black bags filled with leaves and debris from the flowerbeds zero out the one big black bag I resolved to throw out of my house yesterday?

I didn't think so.

Resolutions and Revolutions

2005-12-26T10:29:00.001-06:00

I have such a bad history with resolutions that I'm considering making some very easy ones just so that I learn how it feels to be successful at them.

The first one I considered was: Breathe.

Okay, I resolve this year to breathe regularly and well.

EXCEPT.

I have such a bad history with resolutions that resolving to breathe seems an unnecessary tempting of fate.

Last year I think I made only one, and it was a fun one, and something I anticipated with great enthusiasm. I bought a Moleskine so that I could be one of the cool kids, like Hemingway and Picasso and Diane.
Mind you, I hate writing by hand because I hold the pen funny and my fingers and joints cramp and my writing is illegible, even to me. I am not someone who keeps diaries or any kind of written records much (except for BUSINESS RECORDS if anyone from the IRS is reading and gets any wild audit-ideas). So I have nothing to write IN a Moleskine.

But then I got this absolutely great idea! I decided I was going to use it for a book/movie journal. List every book I read, or listened to*, or movie I watched, for the entire year. Maybe with thoughts/comments. Maybe just a list.

I can't tell you how excited I was to have finally found something I might actually follow through on.

Well, you may think you know where this is going. And you would be wrong. Sort of.

It's not that I forgot to list stuff. It's not that I didn't bother.

It's that I got hired onto a writing project that swallowed up all of my time for weeks, and then those weeks were followed by minor-but-annoying illness, and then our trip to the UK --

I am thinking there was never a 3-month period in my entire life (well, since I was 6, anyway) where I didn't read a single book, or see a single movie. THIS is what making a resolution does to my life!

My Moleskine gathered dust. I'd started it proudly on Jan 1 with the notation that I was reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and when we went to the UK in March I was STILL READING IT.

I eventually started reading and watching movies again, but by then who the hell knows where the Moleskine is? (sigh)

You see why I was worried about the "I resolve to breathe" thing, right?

But somehow, I still feel the desire.

So I will ponder them. I will think of something. Hey, clearly failure doesn't deter me! There's something good in that, isn't there?

In the meantime I am making one resolution for today.

Today I resolve to fill one black trash bag with "stuff that needs to leave this house" and make it, um, leave the house.

Tune in tomorrow to see if a one-day resolution will defeat me, as well.

* Audible rocks. Tell 'em dallaspooks sent you.

Holy Swingers

2005-12-25T19:32:00.000-06:00

I have no explanation.

A priest gave it to me so I don't think I'll burn in hell for loving it.

On the other hand, she's a Buffalo Bills fan.

I may have to rethink this....

Still going....

2005-12-25T09:59:00.000-06:00

Cowboys 24
Panthers 20

"I think this team has a little spunk to it, I really do," Coach Bill Parcells said. "I know we've had some ups and downs, but I like them. I do."

So do I.

Christmas Advice

2005-12-23T07:39:00.000-06:00

Through experience, we've arrived at the following conclusions.

1. You may not be selfish. I am. I like the kiddies to know where the "big stuff" comes from and to be appropriately grateful. Thus Santa brings cool stuff that delights them, but we (the parents) give the BIG stuff. Bicycles, XBoxes, etc. come from the parents who spent days tracking them down, stood in line for hours, and stayed up all night to assemble (with bloody knuckles to prove it). The kids have never felt short-changed from Santa, and I appreciate the hugs. (I told you I'm selfish.)

2. Our kids always open one present on Christmas Eve. This kind of annoys them because they know what it is in advance from bitter experience, but they go along with it: New pajamas. (We're taking lots of pictures the next morning. I want everybody to look cute.)

3. If you've ever had your kids waking up throughout the night to see if Santa has come yet, or wake up WAY TOO EARLY (2:00 a.m., anyone?) and be ready to tear into the gifts -- you need to understand The Rules of Santa. On Christmas Eve when you go to bed, you must unplug the Christmas tree lights. When Santa comes, he will turn them back on. If you wake up and tiptoe into the living room and it's still dark? Run like hell for bed because Santa hasn't been there yet, and if he comes and sees you out of bed, he may not stop!!! At our house we've been delighted to discover that not only does Santa come and leave the Christmas tree lights, on -- he also turns on the CD player. LOUD. Usually Christmas music, but he has been known to slip the much-desired CD off somebody's Christmas list into the player to wake us all up. Which was lots of fun when oldest son slipped Jimi Hendrix into the player to wake up his dad.

4. Christmas stockings. The day comes when all kids understand that Santa is, um, not filling those stockings any more. I got this idea from my sister. The family draws names, and each person has to fill somebody else's stocking. There's a price limit, and everybody has fun and everybody gets surprised, and it's not all up to one person to try and figure it all out.

5. Mimosas. Christmas mimosas start the day with a fizz-bang.

Optional but fun: Find a preschool Christmas pageant and watch the chaos ensue, complete with handheld fuzzy photos:

(This has been a Christmas-centric entry because Christmas is our holiday-of-choice. Adapt as needed.)

And whatever you celebrate, have a merry-happy!

Big Easy Guys in Kilts

2005-12-22T07:46:00.000-06:00

If you don't mind, I'm directing you to some special causes today.

You may have seen it mentioned in Toni's or Jette's journals. You may have seen the banner on Holidailies.

This promises to be a poignant, beautiful book of photography and essays about New Orleans. If you order before the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6 -- when Christmas season ends and Carnival begins) the shipping is free and the profits go to a relief organization in New Orelans. What a bargain, and a good deed.

So go ahead, click here, go order the book. I'll wait for you to come back:

Yes, I want to buy a beautiful book AND get a good deal AND do a good deed, because that's just the kind of person I am.

Okay, and now on to something of vital importance to all of us.

Guys in kilts.

By now you may have seen the story about anti-Scottish bias in Missouri.

Please, go sign the petition.

Do your part. It's good for guys. It's good for the world.

Because if there's one thing I know about this crazy mixed-up world of ours, it's this: The world doesn't have enough burly guys in kilts.

Besides, if the Scots don't win this with peacable petition, they'll be back and it will get ugly.

They'll bring bagpipes.

Thank you.

Scaling back

2005-12-21T15:24:00.000-06:00

For years, I've carried huge bags. Sometimes I'd find funky cute ones. This year I've had a big ugly one. Not a big-so-ugly-it's-cute one. Just ugly.

Thing is, my old laptop was a 17" Dell, so it took a big bag to carry it, along with books or my planner or anything else I needed. I even used a rolling bag at times. But last Christmas Santa-Sam brought me a 12" PowerBook and I no longer needed a big honkin' bag. So in the weeks before we went to the UK I sent off for several different smaller bags to carry the new laptop, my camera, some books -- you know, a bag to be the "personal item" you're allowed on flights.

I tried out cute ones. I tried Crumpler, for example. Ended up with a
Crumpler purse and a Crumpler camera bag, but not the messenger bag. Things just didn't fit the way I wanted them to.

I ended up getting three or four bags, and sent them all back because none of them worked.

Until I ordered a Rick Steves bag and somehow, it was just so damn practical, and everything fit. Camera, iPod, laptop, guidebooks, my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (yes, I was crazy enough to carry a huge hardcover book with me, but can you think of a better place to read it?) and everything still slid under the seat in front of me. It was comfortable on my shoulder (as comfortable as a heavy bag can be, anyway) and the bottom line was, even though I had a small laptop, I still like to carry lots of crap.

Nobody has ever asked, "Where did you get your bag?" Believe me, they didn't want to know. But not only was it perfect for the trip -- I've carried it with me everywhere since. Loaded down with whatever stuff I wanted to load it with. (One benefit -- I don't think people look at it and assume it's carrying anything worth stealing.)

But the thing it has rarely carried is my trusty huge-ass Franklin Planner (not exactly like that binder, but similar), which is as big as a high school notebook and in my case usually stuffed to the gills. Because in the past year or so I haven't been using it much. Because it's big and clunky. And I have too many big, clunky things in my life, and I end up deciding not to take it, and next thing I know weeks have passed since I looked at it.

This is not a good thing. I barely hold the details of my life together when I write things down. When I don't? Oy.

I've tried scaling back to a smaller size, and I hated it. I didn't have room to write all the stuff I tend to write on the lined page during the day. I found it uncomfortable to write in, and my writing is too big for the smaller lines. Hated it, and went back to the big size.

Until this week. This week I have gone against everything that I know about my habits and myself and went even smaller. I ordered a very-small planner, in a very-cute binder that can also serve as a very-cute purse.

I'm in love.

Of course, I haven't actually tried to use it as a planner yet. And the lines are even tinier. Yikes.

But this is December and in December when I'm planning which new leaves to overturn, anything seems possible, and January seems very far away.

Besides. It's just so cute.

And I can stuff it in my big ugly bag if I want it to but for the past few days I've worn it everywhere and the strangest thing has happened.
Women keep asking me where I bought it.

Saved by the Quilt

2005-12-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

As Sean so eloquently put it in comments about my mother's theme trees, mine is one of those trees that "Christmas walked by after one too many shots of 'nog and threw up all over."

But each year I select one of the Christmas wallhangings (and matching Christmas tree skirt) my mother has given me through the years, and that kind of saves the day.

Added 12/22:

There has been a lot of interest in the quilt (Hi, Mel, thanks for the link!), so here are a couple of closer shots.

The border may not be very traditional "Christmas" but I love it. My mother knew I wanted purple in the hanging and she found this gorgeous fruit fabric.

Making a list, checking it twice.

2005-12-19T07:42:00.000-06:00

Let's see where I stand on this particular list....

1. Write a holidailies entry composed entirely of clichés.

Check.

2. Write a holidailies entry made up of dumb repetitious memes.

Check.

3. Write a holidailies entry about the weather.

Check.

4. Write a holidailies entry that is actually a to-do list.

As of this morning, check.

5. Thank Jette and Chip for giving me something fun to do along with the busy-business of the holidays.

Check.

6. Wish Mr. Pickles a very happy holiday season.

Have a great holiday, Mr. Pickles!

Check!

Not so much alive.

2005-12-19T07:05:00.000-06:00

Redskins -- 35

Cowboys -- 7

How's the Weather?

2005-12-18T17:10:00.000-06:00

The problem with stormchasing is --

It's just too damned boring.

Wake up, find out it's a chase day, decide to go with the stormchaser guy you live with. Stormchaser guy is hanging on the internet, looking at surface winds and vapour images and whatnots, and figuring out where he thinks the storms will be, where he thinks the conditions will be best for severe weather.

I get ready to go.

And wait. And wait. While he keeps getting more data, maybe changing his mind, maybe just debating in circles trying to convince himself that he's not going to change his mind, and eventually...

We leave. Which generally means we have hours of driving ahead of us.

Hours and hours and hours. The sky is clear. A beautiful blue Texas sky, and he's pointing out a wisp of this or that and I'm nodding "attentively" while I read my book. Because that's the only way to cope with that kind of drive. Read.

We almost always end up driving in the right direction, passing under the right amount of clear Texas sky, so that we end up smack dab in the middle of where a storm is forming. That's rather remarkable, waking up with not a cloud over the entire state of Texas and having the stormchaser guy in residence draw a box on the state and say, "This is where it will be," and then get us there.

So he's there, and watching it form. Watching the clouds build. Watching for lightning/wall clouds/whatnot. Watching and watching and watching.

And maybe? Maybe we'll move around a bit to get a better position on it, a better vantage point.

Meanwhile I'm still reading.

"Hey -- get your head out of that book!"

Uh-oh.

That thing is BIG. And it's in front of us. And it's heading toward us.

He's videoing, and reporting in to the local Civil Defense RACES network. Sirens are going off around us because we're on the edge of a town. It's a haunting sound, those sirens, but we stay as long as we can, before taking our exit route.

I'm not reading any more.

We keep reporting, and keep following.

The tornado is losing strength, but still fierce. We drive along parallel to it for miles, reporting its progress and location.

And then it's gone.

Later when we pass back through that town, the Salvation Army is already there handing out free coffee and donuts to emergency workers. We hear about the two deaths -- parents. Their child is on the way via ambulance to a hospital in Amarillo. We wonder what failed -- did they not hear the sirens, or not take them seriously? Were they unable to get to safety? Did they not have any "safety" to get to? Because it's always a failure when despite the warnings, people die.

We make a donation to the Salvation Army. (They argue with us, try not to take it, try to give us free coffee, but we insist.)

It's almost dark, and trying to catch up with the storm systems is unlikely.

It's going to be a long drive home.

But that's okay.

I brought plenty to read.

(A best of holidailies exceptional entry.)

Tagged quite tartly.

2005-12-17T13:32:00.000-06:00

Ten years ago I was online, on GEnie, making friends that it appears are stuck with me for the rest of our lives, since we're all still friends. There was this little private workshop and let's see if I can tick these off -- so far out of that workshop came a successful tv writer/showrunner, another successful tv writer, a couple of produced screenwriters, a Warner Brothers Workshop participant, a Disney Fellow, two Nicholl Fellows (some of these are overlapping), and I know I'm forgetting some. But that's a huge success rate for a very small group of strangers meeting and critiquing each other's scripts on a weird thing called a computer bulletin board.

One year ago I was fretting that the American Airlines voucher that I "earned" by getting sick on airline food on the way to England in February 2003 was going to expire before we got to use it. And since "earning" involved throwing up on the plane, at Gatwick, and halfway across the South of England before we finally gave up on finding our hotel and found another place to stay? I by damn was not going to let that thing expire. (We did get to use it to buy tickets for a UK trip in February 2005 which turned into a UK trip in March 2005 because -- damn it -- I got sick and couldn't go when it was originally scheduled. And I am not a sick woman, I swear.)

Five things I enjoy doing are traveling, reading, writing well (would that this happened more often), camping, movies.

My five bad habits (ha, only five?) include eating too much, talking too much, swearing too much, being lazy too much and not cleaning the damn house enough.

Five things I find myself saying a lot: "Saa-aa--aam!" (Yes, I can make "Sam" have three syllables.) "Hell, no, he hasn't called yet, and ARE WE SURPRISED?" "Good grief." "Holy cow." "Oh hush."

Have a happy Saturday, all!

Best Christmas Movie Evah!

2005-12-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

I guess everybody has to blog about this. Favorite movies, favorite carols, favorite memories, favorite yadas.

First let me get this out of the way.

I love Jimmy Stewart.

I adore Jimmy Stewart.

And every time "It's a Wonderful Life" comes on, I want to bitch-slap everybody in it.

Especially Jimmy Stewart.

"Miracle on Whatever-that-was Street?" Bah, humbug.

"A Christmas Story?" Yawn.

Now, I do like "While You Were Sleeping" bunches. That's a lovely feel-good Christmas-time movie, and that cute Sandy Bullock, I could just eat her with a spoon.

BUT -- the best Christmas movie ever HAS to be filled with salaciousness, with tawdriness, with back-biting and scheming and strategizing and passion and love and love lost and mayhem.

Mommy has been locked up in prison for ten years but has been granted a holiday leave -- by Daddy. (One can hardly blame him -- Mommy raised an army against him and tried to take him out.)

Daddy's sleeping with oldest son's fiance. Oldest son is coming home and might, ahem, object.

Middle son and youngest son have their own "issues."

Ah, family values! Just what a little Christmas story needs.

Katherine Hepburn!

Peter O'Toole!

Anthony Hopkins!

Timothy Dalton!

What more could you possibly ask for?

The Lion in Winter.

"What family doesn't have its ups and downs?"

Go forth and see it!

Dartmoor (lots of pictures)

2005-12-15T16:44:00.000-06:00

So I'm very tired and fuzzy-headed and rather than throw together an entry just to be doing one, I'm going to do something I enjoy.

Photos from our brief sojourn in Dartmoor last March. I can't wait to go back.

It was like magic. Unbelievable magic. Late in the day, driving and looking for a b&b to stay in, and what should we find but a unicorn ... missing its horn.

And I don't care what my friend Jeo says -- this is not the ugliest pony on the face of the earth. Sheeeeesh!

We found the b&b -- a lovely place in Holne. They told us to walk on up to the pub, and it was very dark and other-worldly, and fabulous.

As was the pub itself. Fabulous, I mean. Not dark and other-worldly.

The next morning I was poking around the church's graveyard looking at stones when, just to welcome this Texas girl to the neighborhood, they had a cattle drive right through the middle of town.

I just love this picture. Two companions clambering over rocks and roaming.

I'm not even showing the landscape, am I? Okay, here's a babbling brook, how's that.

Okay, I'm going to do myself in with this one. After this I will simply stagger away from the computer and curl up in a ball and whimper for scones. And PG Tips. And scones.

Whimper.

(A best of holidailies exceptional entry.)

HL,WT (first in a series)

2005-12-14T15:56:00.000-06:00

I don't think anyone can explain the appeal, nay, the siren song, of a laptop for a writer.

Not all writers. But an awful lot of them, from J.K. Rowling to -- me.

Why would I want to write in a crowded (or empty) coffee house? Because -- whatever happens there?

IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM.

At home? Surrounded by stuff I should do. (Not that I would abandon my laptop to actually do that stuff -- but just knowing it's there can disrupt my delicate creative psyche, cough-cough.)

At Starbucks?

Plug in my headphones (even if I'm not listening to anything -- it cuts down on strangers asking me about my computer, about the wifi connection, anything else a stranger might decide to ask if they see somebody sitting there WORKING, for pete's sake). See my comfy chair? It's purple. And velvet!

And we're off to the races. People laughing? Talking? Not my problem. People spilling things? Not my problem. People asking for directions? Not my problem.

Now this is my nearby neighborhood Starbucks. Not all Starbucks are created equal, and yes I know you don't believe this, but they do have a different ambience. Which is why this is the first in a series.

Have Laptop, Will Travel.

I know you can't wait for the next episode.

Right?

Um, right.

I'm Killing Hollywood.

2005-12-13T10:31:00.000-06:00

So I put in a call to The Guy and after a few days he hasn't called back, which I'm used to because after all there are jokes made about why guys like this don't call back, business as usual, tra-la-la.

I email and say, "phone call?" and The Guy emails back, "Sorry, I was at a funeral today, very sad, will call tomorrow."

Of course tomorrow didn't come, or rather the phone call didn't, which is okay because I was at the movies, anyway.

So I email the next day and say, "phone call?" and The Guy emails back, "I just lost another industry friend," and details, and "call you in a sec," which I didn't believe, because after all, this is The Guy.

But then I realize, for every call The Guy doesn't return, a friend dies.

Whoa. This could be a mooooovie!

I kill Hollywood, fear my call.

Or return it.

O Christmas Tree

2005-12-12T07:55:00.000-06:00

My mother has four Christmas trees in her house. (Lighted trees, she would point out. There are others sitting on tables and such decorated with sparkly retro earrings or candy canes and apples or, whatever.) And all of her trees have themes. The 10' tree is hung with dolls -- small porcelain dolls, mostly, but others as well. People ooh and aah as they stand and look at all the different dolls, and add to the collection.

One is covered with small hand quilted patchwork ornaments. (She's a gifted quilter and has had quilts in magazines and art calendars and such.)

Etc., etc., etc.

But my favorite tree? The one of my childhood.

When I was little we had one tree. Always real, of course. And a study in perfection. This is the tree by which all other Christmas trees must be measured, and must fall short.

The bulbs were the old-fashioned fat kind. All red.

All the ornaments -- every single one -- were identical.

Fat shiny red balls.

Tied on with perfect bows of red satin ribbon.

Silver icicles shimmered from the tips of the branches, in perfect strands.

At night I'd stretch out under the tree in the dark, and bask in the red glow, and listen to Firestone record albums. And Goodyear. Wasn't it Goodyear? Or Goodrich? Some other tire company. Everything from the Vienna Boys' Choir singing "Carol of the Bells" to Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme. The Julie Andrews Christmas Album where she sang familiar lyrics to unfamiliar (British) melodies.

I've never tried to match that tree. My tree is a jumble of colorful ornaments my kids made, cheap ornaments I've bought at Target and the grocery store and expensive ornaments I've bought on vacations. I like the fruit-basket-turnoverness of it. The non-perfection of it, if you will.

But deep in my heart I know my kids were deprived of magical red light and shadows.

And it's my mother's fault, for getting tired of tying all those damn perfect red satin bows.

Still alive...

2005-12-11T21:54:00.000-06:00

Dallas 31
KC 28

Hope springs eternal.

That's Right, You're Not From Texas*

2005-12-11T08:38:00.000-06:00

All this nonsense about Dubya not being a real Texan?

He's lived here since he's four. He WANTS to be a Texan.

He's a Texan.

Get the hell over it.

I'm fifth-generation and a Texian to boot. If I'm not offended, who do you think you are to be offended? (Sixth-generation descendent of Sam Houston? Okay, you get a vote.)

I learned what it means to be a Texan from a guy from Kentucky who moved here, fell in love with the state, and was buried too few years later with his boots on. And from a kid who lost his legal status when he turned 18 and was told to go back to Mexico and fill out some paperwork and wait a few years ... and he went illegal alien status until he finally found a lawyer who would help him stay.

And that's when I realized, Texas belongs to those who love it.

Looking in from the outside it may be hard to comprehend, but we don't all believe the same thing, vote the same way, act the same way, have the same sensibilities.

So yes, Dubya is a Texan, for better or worse.

Now somebody figure out a way to get that sumbitch out of the White House and back to Texas before he destroys the world.

* But Texas wants you any way.
-- Lyle Lovett, Willis Alan Ramsey & Alison Rogers

Another Prince

2005-12-10T00:24:00.000-06:00

It was dark out, and cold. I was alone in the house on a Sunday morning because of the White Rock Marathon. Sam was volunteering that morning and had been gone for an hour already, and I was sitting in front of the computer waiting for dawn, unable to sleep, feeling ... off-balance. Nothing more than that. Just a little edgy.

And I felt a need to go to church. You know, Christmas. Christmas carols and hymns. That time of year. I hadn't been to church in years other than an occasional family obligation, and the one time I missed it was usually during Christmas. So I surfed the net and looked for an early service at a strange church, because for some reason I didn't want to go to the familiar. My edginess was pushing me to something else.

I managed to choose a service with no music. A church with no Christmas decorations.

Only a handful of people that morning, and so very quiet in that century-old building, which is old by Dallas standards. I looked around and saw I just might be the only person there without gray hair. And kneelers? For kneeling? Um, this is kind of cool. I had no idea.

Everybody stood up. I did, too, belatedly.

The processional. Somebody carrying a cross, and all the people in fancy robes, quietly processing in.

You're not in Kansas any more, Dorothy.

And then, the liturgy. Okay, that got me. This beautiful Shakespearean language. Prayers that were familiar from my Methodist youth, but different. I juggled the prayer book and flipped pages and couldn't keep up and kept thinking, "This is strange, this is strange, holy cow is THIS strange!" But deep down I realized, it was a foreign experience I wanted to learn. I didn't want to scamper back to more familiar territory. I wanted to become part of this experience, this moment that felt like it had been going on centuries and would go for centuries more. Language that was old but ageless. I'm a word girl. These words were beautiful.

Hold on. People are crossing themselves. Kneeling. Genuflecting.

This is definitely not Kansas.

And when it was over and I'd managed to slip out without having to, you know, actually talk to anybody -- I realized I wasn't edgy. I felt something I could only describe as calm. Reassurance. Grace. I walked out, shook it off, and headed off to continue my Sunday plans....

Cut to the chase.

My father died later that day.

Yes, he was ill.

No, nobody saw this coming.

We saw him late that morning, laughed, visited, kissed him, went to eat lunch, then came back and he told us he needed to sleep and why didn't we go on. He was going home from the hospital the next day, and everything seemed fine.

Before I could get home my cell phone was ringing. My mother. "Go back, you have to go back to the hospital. I'm on the way. They called, they want to know if we want to implement his living will...I don't know, I don't know, I said I wanted to talk to my doctor and they said there's no time, they have to have an answer NOW."

We all flew to the hospital from different directions. Gathered, stunned to see him, eyes closed, not knowing we were there. We wept, questioned, denied. An hour passed, maybe two, and the denial was gone, acceptance oozed in.

And through every moment one part of me was standing back and feeling Grace. No other word for it. It draped over me like a mantle, wrapped me in calm, embraced me with reassurance.

He died and we were all there around him. I hope he knew. I believe he knew.

Good night, sweet Prince.

May light perpetual shine upon you.

(A best of holidailies exceptional entry.)

The Last Prince of Wales

2005-12-08T14:30:00.000-06:00

We don't travel.

We meander.

We drive, and while we're perfectly capable of 12-hour days driving if we want to get somewhere (he could have been a trucker, for sure) once there, we rarely have planned too far ahead, and while we might know where we want to go or something we want to see, we take our own good time getting to it.

We have a De Lorme map for just about any state we've ever vacationed in, because we need to know the dirt roads, the gravel roads, the "not finished yet" roads. (Okay, that's a lie, we don't drive on the "not finished yet" roads. I was just checking to see if you're paying attention.)

And that's why we have four or five big spiral-bound detailed road maps and I don't know how many ordnance maps, because when we go to the UK, once we hit Gatwick we pick up a car and drive.

When we were getting ready to go to England the first time all our friends who'd been told us, "Stay in London and take daytrips out. You have no idea how much there is to see in London." And when they heard our plans, they were more than a bit dismayed. "Oh, no -- don't drive, you don't want to drive!"

So I went on a message board where people talked about travel in the UK and asked, and everyone said the same thing. Stay in London your first trip. You could stay there a year and not see everything. Anyone tired of London is tired of living. Take daytrips out if you must. And DON'T DRIVE!

Except one woman. And she said, "My husband and I don't really like London. We don't even go there any more. We always drive. If you want to drive, drive. You'll love it." And she gave us the best advice we ever got.

"Get lost on purpose. You'll see the things your friends will never see."

I've come to realize that many of us ask for advice not because we want advice, but because we want somebody to tell us it's okay to go ahead and do what we wanted to do in the first place. A dozen people saying "don't" didn't stop us. One woman, a stranger, no less, saying "do" was all I needed. (Sam didn't need that much. He's already decided. I was just trying to reassure myself that we weren't headed for disaster!)

In March 2005 we crossed the pond for the fourth time. On this particular night, we stayed overnight in a small Welsh village we stopped in just because we needed to stop. We'd never heard of it; there was nothing remarkable about it. We couldn't find a b&b and it had a small hotel so we stopped. The next morning we noticed a sign on the hotel parking lot pointing to a castle so we drove a block to the base of a steep hill and looked up.

Not much of a ruin but hidden in the midst of Llandovery, Wales. Okay, we saw it. Lets go on....

But we didn't go on. We kept standing in the mist looking up at it. We wondered if it was worth walking the steep muddy track to get to it. It wasn't far, but it was muddy. The ruin didn't look like much.

I kept looking at that hill and finally I figured why the heck not.

You see, there was this weird statue. Looked like stainless steel which was pretty odd on a crumbling hill in an ancient land. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn the Last. An odd, modern yet other-worldly statue. Very modern and yet not as out of place as it should have been....

I climbed.

And when I got to the top on that muddy grey morning I found him. The last true prince of Wales, the last Welsh prince. A prince who died attempting to retain freedom for his land.

Still standing guard over Llandovery, Wales.

It was worth the drive.

Tagged quite tartly.

2005-12-08T14:23:00.000-06:00

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was online, on GEnie, making friends that it appears are stuck with me for the rest of our lives, since we're all still friends. How crazy is that? There was this little private workshop and let's see if I can tick these off -- so far out of that workshop came a successful tv writer/showrunner, another successful tv writer, a couple of produced screenwriters, a Warner Brothers Workshop participant, a Disney Fellow, two Nicholl Fellows (some of these are overlapping), and I know I'm forgetting some. But that's a huge success rate for a very small group of strange people meeting and critiquing each other's scripts on a strange thing called a computer bulletin board.

What were you doing one year ago?

Fretting that the American Airlines voucher that I "earned" by getting sick on airline food on the way to England in February 2003 was going to expire before we got to use it. And since "earning" involved throwing up on the plane, at Gatwick, and halfway across the South of England before we finally gave up on finding our hotel and found another place to stay? I by damn was not going to let that thing expire. (We did get to use it to buy tickets for a UK trip in February 2005 which turned into a UK trip in March 2005 because -- damn it -- I got sick and couldn't go when it was originally scheduled. And I am not a sick woman, I swear.)

What are 5 things you enjoy doing?

Travel. Reading. Movies. Watching Cowboys and/or Longhorns football. Writing well.

What are your 5 bad habits?

Eating too much. Talking too much. Swearing too much. Being lazy too much. Not cleaning house enough.

What 5 things do you find yourself saying a lot?

"Saa-aa--aam!" (Yes, I can make "Sam" have three syllables.) "Hell, no, he hasn't called yet, and ARE WE SURPRISED?" "Good grief." "Holy cow." "Fuck."

Singalong

2005-12-08T07:11:00.000-06:00

I've always wanted to do a singalong Messiah.

I never get to.

Thing is, I have always assumed if I did such a thing, it would be with Cindy. Cindy and I have known each other since 3rd grade, sat beside each other in the alto section of the choir in jr. high school (yes, before that silly term "middle school" came into vogue) and have been fully involved in each other's lives ever since.

And every Christmas we either forget about the singalong Messiah until it's too late, or Cindy is in (pardon me, boys) Chattanooga for the holidays. This year will be no different.

But there's another catch, and that's simply that neither of us owns the vocal score to the Messiah. This year I intended to change that. This year I intended to buy a couple "just in case" even though we wouldn't be needing them. I mean, there's always next year, right?

So a trip down Amazon lane was in order.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear but the same score my sister owns. It's so lovely and OLD looking, like a real Messiah score ought to look.And they even mention singalongs in the description. And only $7.50! I decided to order four. Who knows, maybe I could lure others into our adventure when we finally manage to pull this off in, say, 2011? (Oh wait. I won't be able to find these next week, much less in 2011, but what the hell, they're so pretty!)

And just before I hit send and place the order I think, "Maybe I should ask Bryan." Because the thing about Bryan is, she's always good for an opinion, which I guess is why she's a critic, duh.

That score is the very first piece of music I bought for myself, in high school (when it was just $1.50 for the paperback, and boy, do I wish I'd sprung for the hardcover at $3!). I have learned a good deal since then, and I would advise against Schirmer; their scores are notoriously inaccurate. For starters, there's no "The" in the title; it's just "Messiah" -- and it gets worse from there.

Here's the one we used tonight -- and it's the only one I'd use, given a choice: Don't worry about the "good for sing-alongs" business; you won't be encountering wrong notes in the Watkins Shaw, and they're a definite hazard in the Schirmer.

Oh.

But it's not as pretty and old-looking. And she's actually going on the presumption that I will recognize the wrong notes when I see them, or that anyone hearing me howl, "For unto us a child is bo-O-o-O-o-o-o-o-OO-o-o-o-OO-o-O-rn!" would have any earthly idea whether I actually INTENDED to hit the right notes or not.

But she got me with the "The," damn it. I mean, I'm a purist on the dumbed-down-for-Americans Harry Potter Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone issue, so of course I'm going to get my knickers in a twist over a dumbed-down "The."

Except. (sigh) Now I'm going to have to train myself not to use the dumbed-down-"The" my dumbed-down-self.

So, anyway, four copies of a pretty orange Messiah are winging their way to me, and I plan to spend a few eggnogged hours in my living room alone with Watkins Shaw and Christopher Hogwood, The Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of Christ Church, Oxford and nobody will know whether I hit the damn notes or not.

Bryan added, I hope you can go, as it is my firm belief that Messiah is more fun to sing than to listen to.

Especially with eggnog and Cindy. (She'll hit as many bad notes as I will. Now THAT'S a party.)

The Sorbet Course (with a side order of heroin)

2005-12-07T08:41:00.000-06:00

I seemed to have a pleasant little career going. I had (finally) finished my fifth romance novel (that would actually be published, that is) and was feeling a little shaky -- sure, I'll admit that, it had been an emotionally gruesome rewrite process -- and I had no reason to believe the career wouldn't keep going and picking up steam.

And friends in Dallas were taking a screenwriting class and loving it, and they kept telling me I should take it, too. But I didn't want to, because I knew it was a waste of time, that no way was I going to write a script and sell it, and .... There was that "feeling a little shaky" thing. The fact that it finally occurred to me that every time I sat down in front of my Mac to try and start a new project I felt queasy. I was mentally flinching with every word I thought to write before I even typed it in. My hands were literally shaking. My confidence was shot and I suddenly thought, wow, this is writer's block. THIS is what it's about.

And suddenly a screenwriting class seemed just the thing.

A cleansing of the palate.

A project that I could write just for me, without worrying about an editor sitting on one shoulder making me murder my darlings and rewrite until she was satisfied, and the expectations of the romance genre sitting on the other shoulder constricting me in what felt like a creative straitjacket. (More on that in another post, I'm sure.)

Yes, irony abounds.

I took a screenwriting class so that I could write what I wanted to, so that I could control my story the way I wanted to, so that nobody would tell me what to write or how to write it.

I took the damn course so that I could be the boss of me.

(Okay, I'm pausing while everybody in Hollywood cackles in maniacal glee.)

I walked in the first night and because the only other students were friends who knew me all too well, it was "interesting." When we were asked to tell what we were going to write, I mentioned I was going to write a screen adaptation of the first novel I'd published, a story that had never let go of me even after it was forgotten by everybody else.

"Oh, no," said the instructor. "You don't want to do that. You don't want to write a western. A western will never sell."

I laughed out loud. "Excuse me? Do I have stupid written on my forehead? Do I look like someone who thinks their first screenplay is going to sell?" Driving home my point: "If I can't write what I want to on this script, on a script that I know will never sell, a script where I'm learning how to write scripts, when the hell will I ever be able to write what I want?"

Now, don't you agree that this is a freaking good point?

Evidently he didn't. He went on, "Yes, but this isn't a good idea for a first script, for a 'learning' script if that's what you want to call it, because it's hard to take a 600-page novel and boil it down to a story that fits in a 120-page screenplay. You're much better off coming up with a story that is designed for the length and format you're writing."

At this point the other students -- good friends who felt free to voice their opinions for my own good, ahem -- echoed his sentiments.

I stood firm.

He pulled out his big guns.

"Okay, let's be honest. You will never be able to pull this off well, because the real issue is that this is a 600-page novel that YOU WROTE. You'll never be able to be brutal enough to make the kinds of changes that will have to be made." He kept going, and my friends joined in, until they eventually ran out of steam, satisfied that they were right and they were saving me a lot of heartache.

And they WERE right. Everything he'd said was true, and I knew that as he said it, and you know what? I didn't give a damn. I walked into that class not just needing a break from being told what to write, but with a passion for a story that had yet to be quenched, damn it. I wanted to dive back into that world and those characters, and I intended to do just that.

And when he finished telling me what I "couldn't" do, I just shrugged and grinned and said, "Watch me."

I finished his class, stumbled across an online screenwriting workshop (the magical world of GEnie) and got battered again and again by critiques that said, "You write too much like a novelist," or worse, "You write too much like a romance novelist," until I was screaming into the ether with frustration, but eventually I managed to finish the damn script.

I finished it because of a deadline. I'm nothing without deadlines. And this deadline was for a screenwriting competition* sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscar people) and I finished the first draft of my script three weeks prior to the deadline and waited for somebody to give me feedback. Only nobody had time because they were all fighting for the same deadline. And I finally just dove back in and did the best I could do and shoved the script into the mail.

And out of almost 4,000 entries, my script was in the top 100, a Semifinalist, and my phone started ringing.

And everybody who read it kind of went, "Eh, it's a western, what else ya got?" and at that point the answer was nothing. They wanted to read my next script, doors were open, etc. Except for one producer who asked, "Can I show this to a director who is looking for a project and I think she might like this?" so I said yes. I mean, I even recognized the director's name and that's saying something.

And then, "The director loves it, wants to show it to (Oscar-winning actress) who is a friend of hers, is that okay?" And I said yes. And the actress loves it and shows it to actors (whose names make me drool) and I'm hearing things like, "She's going to be having lunch with this British actor in NYC and she's giving him a copy of the script," and I'm wondering if somebody is playing some evil trick on this writer-with-no-connections in Dallas, because honestly, who would believe this? Certainly I had friends in the real world who looked at me with a tad of skepticism when I talked about it, and I couldn't blame them.

And then suddenly the script got people "attached." And I have an agent.

Okay, I'll cut to the chase. In case you haven't figured this out (which means you're not in Hollywood) the film never got off the ground, I never saw any money, etc.

But.

But!

This was my first script, my first attempt, and people. These phone calls? Saying famous people loved it? Wanted to be in it? Wanted to direct it?

Heroin.

Straight in the veins.

The "almosts" in Hollywood are much more exciting than the "almosts" in New York.

I haven't written a novel since. If somebody had told me at that time, "In the year 2005 you still will not have sold a script," would I have run back to novels squealing like a little girl?

I don't think so.

And THAT is the power of the Hollywood dream.

On an early trip to LA I called a novelist friend back in Dallas and warned her, "I may lose you, I'm driving on Mulholland Drive and I'll lose the signal any minute but I've got to tell you --"

"Bitch."

"Wait, I'm trying to tell you --"

"I know. You're on Mulholland Drive. I'm in the grocery store in Dallas. Bitch."

I love my life.

In October my agent handed me a printout of the stars' homes on Roxbury, above Sunset. He's a silver-tongued devil of the highest caliber, because it's not obvious that he's being a silver-tongued devil until much later, but he knew how to get to me. I'd just told him that in all my trips to LA I'd never done the tourist thing, had never seen the things most people see. And he handed me the printout and spun me a tale of why I needed to go see Lucy's house, and Jimmy Stewart's house, and on and on.

"Because this is why we're in the business, isn't it?"

And it is.

So yes, when people keep trying to convince me to dive back into novels, to return to the NYC fold, I just shake my head.

I'm a failure in that 12-Step program because while admitting I'm addicted is easy?

Kicking it is a joke. I don't even want to.

I realize this sorbet course has been going on entirely too long, but the next course is to move forward to the entree, not back to the appetizer.

Somebody pass the crack, please.

* I won in 2001. With a rewrite of that same western. And no, it still hasn't sold.

The Summer Birds

2005-12-06T14:45:00.001-06:00

I have this friend -- we've been friends for over twenty years. Her name is Kate. I don't remember her last name. (Don't ask.)

Anyway, after years of living a half hour away from me, she had the audacity to move to the Texas hill country and I haven't quite forgiven her for that. And because of odd cell coverage and such, Kate tends to call me from her cell phone when she's out in the car driving, and for some weird reason she never calls when I'm actually home. So I come home and find out I've missed her again. So we haven't actually talked in yonks.

Last week she emailed me about something and I responded, "I have a blog. Here's the URL." And so she came and read, and next thing I know, I have an email from Kate saying:

" THE-SUMMER-BIRDS-PENELOPE-FARMER-1962-hb, According to Amazon.com, this is a fantasy about a boy who teaches the village children to fly. Amazon has 16 used books starting at $1.95. Looks like the book was written in '62."

With links to copies on Ebay and Amazon. (I have yet to figure out how used book sites price used books because while it's highly likely that the copy I ordered for $1.99 is priced that low for a reason, I doubt seriously if the copy that is priced $250.00 could be worth a tenth of that, but I digress.)

The point is, well, wow.

She found the book about some bird-boy (see #9) that I've looked for for years, and she found it in five minutes.

I have a feeling if Kate had called me on the phone (pretend I'd actually been home to answer) and I'd said, "Hey, glad you called, there's a book I've been looking for and can't find, why don't you find it for me?" Well, let's just say I'm not betting the farm that Kate would have chirpily hung and done my bidding.

But put it in the blog, and next thing I know -- well, there ya go. That's either the power of the blog. Or a good friend.

Or both.

Gifts!

2005-12-05T07:51:00.001-06:00

It's that time of year and so I'll toss out a few gift suggestions!

The best laptop sleevecase I've ever seen. Not only are they custom made to fit most sizes of most brands of laptops, but they even are custom made to your specifications. Want yours to open on the side or on top? You choose. Want a flap that folds over and velcroes, or just the strap? A shoulder strap? More? Your choice. Mine fits like the proverbial glove. Check 'em out. While you're at it, check out the Ipod case. I have one of those, and a friend bought the Mac Mini case. SF Bags rock.

Any travelers on your list? Or any trips of your own coming up? I can't recommend the products from the Rick Steves travel store highly enough, especially if you are into traveling light.
We've made four trips to the UK in recent years and each time across the pond I work harder at being organized and packing light. While I recommend the RS site in general, for starters, these packing cubes are ab-fab. Easy to see into so if security decides to check you out there's a good chance they won't have to dig through your frillies and such, and they weigh next to nothing and squash very flat when not filled. When your stuff is contained, it takes up less space. And this mesh "gives" and the zippers are strong so you can stuff the bags pretty snugly without worrying about it. I realize a lot of people love Ziplocks and other bags, and it's a matter of choice. This is my choice, though!

And while I'm on the subject, we've been using Rick Steves carry-on bags for years and they are fantastic. But that's another post. And for the record, if you're a fan of the Rick Steves shows on PBS, it's interesting to know that he provides them at no charge. His business if financed by his travel store, books and tours. So in a roundabout way, you're supporting PBS when you shop with RS! (Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but not too much of one!)

Finally, for the impractical among us, action figures! They have Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare (and dig around and you'll find more cool stuff) at The Writers Store in Los Angeles. All are superheroes in my book!

I'm sure I'll come up with more ideas but for now -- happy shopping! (And the best thing -- all are available without stepping into a mall, and hopefully there's enough time to order and get them before "the day."

Spinning

2005-12-04T11:10:00.001-06:00

So I knew which script I was going to write next.

And I even found old notes on the idea that pretty well mapped out the plot -- and it's good. I mean, all twisty and turny and fairly solid.

And I bought Blake Snyder's Save the Cat and decided that for this experiment I was going to work my way through it, in order, doing exactly what he said. Because you see, I've never plotted/planned a screenplay out in advance before. Not to the degree he recommends. I plotted out novels when I was selling them off proposal, but that was not only different, it also left all sorts of room for frolicking away from the outline and into foreign territory, and that's not good for what I'm doing now.

And I wrote a logline (hate hate hate doing that) sort of, meaning, I kind of wrote one but am not sure if I love it. And I kept working my way through the book, and was close to beginning writing -- and I got excited when I saw nic's "script status bar" and got the html from her and posted my own with the title (Ash Wednesday -- do you like that at all as a thriller title?) and was all ready to go when --

A voice of authority (or rather, a manager) said of the logline, "Eh, sounds too psycho-sexual."

Like that's a bad thing? Heh.

And that's going on the assumption that the logline isn't misleading.

But that's okay -- I figure okay let's not waste time writing a script for which there might not be a market so I pulled the title off and left the status bar over there waiting for a new title, a new project, and now it's nagging me, haunting me, saying, "I"M still sitting on 0% and not only do you not have a title or a logline, you don't even have an IDEA."

I haven't decided whether that status bar is a good thing or a bad thing.

Okay, so I have ideas, I always have ideas, but I don't have THE idea. (And this reminds me of why I have so much down time between projects, because I can never make up my mind what to write next because I want it to be THE idea, THE script, and nothing measures up, and I spin my wheels and spin and spin and spin....

So. I've decided that if I don't have an idea I am absolutely in love with by January 15, I will write the thriller. I'll give myself three months to do it. And maybe during that three months I'll come up with another idea for when I'm finished. Because a project with a title, a logline and especially an outline is a terrible thing to waste.

Unless I fall in love with another idea before January 15.

Email to Toni

2005-12-03T15:48:00.000-06:00

"Sorry -- we were outside when you called -- I'm helping Sam while I also try and clean/rearrange furniture in the living room while I also piddle on the blog stuff and watch Texas kick the [expletive deleted] out of Colorado in the Big 12 Championship.

"Multi-tasking is a lot easier when the score is 56-3 --oops, make that 63-3 with 25 minutes left to play in the game!"

Final score: TEXAS: 70 COLORADO: 3

ROSE BOWL HERE WE COME--AGAIN!

Warning:

Um, I may get kind of hard to live with if we win--again!

::blushing burnt orange::

I'm it.

2005-12-02T08:32:00.000-06:00

So I'm reading the other rob's blog and he's talking about being "tagged" and doing a "meme" (and even though I've seen them many times and read them I've never understood the source of the term until nic said she thinks it's a me-me-me! kind of thing).

And I'm wondering. How do you get tagged? How do you know if you're tagged?

And then I get to the end and -- wow, tag, I'm it!

Okay, so fifteen things about books. I like this one.

1. The first book I ever read all by myself was Sam and the Firefly.

2. The next book I read was my first Nancy Drew, The Hidden Staircase.

3. I am embarrassed by how few classics I've read.

4. I was so highly offended that American publishers felt the need to "dumb down" Harry Potter by even changing the freaking title of the first book, I always order my books from England.

5. The past two Potter books have taken so long to come from England that I've broken down and bought the American copies, too, so I could start reading them before somebody spoiled them for me.

6. One of my prized possessions is an autographed copy of Lonesome Dove that is inscribed, "Merry Christmas, Mama, we love you," and Larry signed it right under my kids' names so it looks like he's my son.

7. Another prized possession is an autographed copy of Prince of Tides. Pat Conroy is one of the most amazing speakers you'll ever hear and I urge you to go hear him any time he holds forth. It's like reading one of his books. He'll have you laughing until you weep, and suddenly make you gasp in horror, and by the time he's through you will be euphoric and emotionally drained at the same time. And he will not only sign every single book that his fans have piled in their arms (or at least that's what he did when he spoke for Friends of the Richardson Library some years ago) but he will introduce himself and shake the hand of every single person in line. Even though you just listened to him speak for an hour, he will smile and offer his hand like a gentleman and say, "Hello, I'm Pat Conroy." And speak to you pleasantly until he knows how he wants to sign your book. And when you're standing at the end of that long line you will be thinking, "Oh my god this is going to take for-freaking-ever," but by the time he shakes your hand and talks to you, you will feel lucky to have had the experience.

8. Yet another prized possession is a very old edition of Paul Clifford, of Bulwer-Lytton fame, complete with the fabulous first line, ""It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

9. I once read a YA book called Summer of the Birds or Bird Summer or something like that, and it was about some bird-boy who came to the town, and at the end of the summer flew away, taking one of the kids with him to live forever with the birds. I can't remember if it was a girl or boy or why the kid was willing to go except that there was a very sad family life. And I've never found the book again, even though I've done websearches, and I checked it out of the library when I was a kid so I'm sure it existed. Well, pretty sure.

10. My most recent book purchase was two days ago, when I bought: Jane Austen's PERSUASION (Barne's and Noble "Collector's Library"), Rose Williams's LATIN QUIPS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS (another Barnes and Noble edition), and a wonderful children's secular Christmas book I recommend to anyone with small children, Maryann Cusimano Love's You Are My Miracle (illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa).

11. My reading habits were very eclectic without concentrating on any particular genre or style or subject matter until I decided to try and write a novel, and the only writer I knew wrote romances, so I began reading tons of romances. Then when I stopped writing romances, I went back to eclectic reading and have read few romances since.

12. I got sucked into the mystery genre after my first trip to England in 1996. When we came back I found myself itching to return immediately, and since that was impossible, I roamed a used book store looking for something that would substitute. I found The Man with a Load of Mischief by Martha Grimes, the first of the Inspector Jury mysteries, and I've had a crush on Melrose Plant ever since. (You really must read the first few in order; once she introduces a ton of continuing characters they crop up at odd and important times which I think would be unsatisfying if you didn't already know who they were.) I tend to gravitate toward British mysteries because I've discovered that in the heat of the summer they cool me off, and in the chill of winter they are as cozy as a cup of hot tea and a woolen shawl. So of course I then read the first Inspector Lynley mystery and became an Elizabeth George fan, as well. And how could I not mention P.D. James -- and no, I have no idea what order those come in, nor have I tried to read them in order.

13. I have never been able to force myself to read books that are "good for me," whether they are spiritual or educational. If the author has a somewhat conversational tone, yes. But otherwise, my ADD kicks in and my eyes glaze over.

14. I have a large collection of books that are supposed to be "good for me," and it keeps growing even though I don't read them. What's up with that?

15. I love writing screen adaptations of novels, and often when I'm reading I find myself forming a script in my head, with a wonderful "I know how to make this work!" surge of adrenaline shooting through me. I am often fairly certain that the author might not like some of the changes unless the author has a realistic idea of what "screen adaptation" has to be. And I'm grateful to Larry McMurtry and Pat Conroy for teaching me what that means years before I ever dreamed of writing a screenplay. (In case you're wondering, when asked by huffy fans how they handle the outrage of what Hollywood does to their books, they both had the same answer. Their job is to write the best novel they can. A filmmaker's job is to make the best movie they can. Books are not movies. Movies are not books. Stop expecting them to be the same and enjoy their differences.) (Edited to add: That does not mean I am satisfied with any of the Harry Potter adaptations, though Prisoner of Azkaban is by far the best!)

And I guess this is where I tag somebody else. So I will tag toni and the admiral and steve in order to throw this net wider.

Spiderman! Garbage Trucks! Flogging!

2005-12-01T21:54:00.000-06:00

So we went to the downtown of a Dallas 'burb to see the Christmas Parade. Not all that small a town, but it had all the charm of a small town parade.

You get the idea that anybody who wants to can be in this parade.

Which is a GOOD thing. Honest. It's quaint and fun and sweet and endearing.

Oh, it's no surprise that the City Council and various local beauty queens were in the Christmas parade.

No surprise really about all the cub scouts, all the church groups, all the schools.

The girls from FFA on horseback with hooves painted red and green were a nice touch.

Lots of floats sponsored by local banks and companies, and lots of people running alongside passing out candy to the kids.

Of course the Environmental Waste Department truck with workers hanging off the sides waving was unexpected.

And the comic book shop with a dozen or so people all dressed as their favorite superheroes in a Christmas parade? Now, that was greatness.

But somebody explain to me why the Catholic school and church had a nice long string of trucks and trailers filled with kids singing Christmas carols and waving and shouting Merry Christmas ....

And two Baptist churches had Christ lugging crosses.

One even had Romans half-heartedly flogging their Jesus, looking rather bored. Their Jesus took it very seriously, though, falling to the ground, then struggling back to his feet to continue in the parade. (I guess we know who saw Mel's PASSION last year, don't we?)

I have a feeling even Mel doesn't have Christ hauling a cross under his Christmas tree.

But -- I could be wrong!

Happy Advent!